Draft Guidelines for Usage of Drones issued

New Delhi Nov 2: In a bid to ensure that that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or popularly called drones can be used for commercial purposes the Government of India has released draft guidelines for public consultation.The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued these guidelines and hopes that the rules would be finalised by the end of next month.

According to guidelines issued the DROnes are classified into 5 categories

# Nano drones whose weight is less than 250g -capable of flying not more than 50 feet from the ground will not need any permission.

# Micro drones -250g to 2 Kg -can fly no higher than 200ft will need police permission.

# Mini Drones -2 Kg to 25 Kg - permissions such as police, licence and a flight plan.

# Small Drones - 25 kg and 150 kg -permissions such as police, licence and a flight plan.

# large Drones- abo 150 Kg

NO DRONE ZONES

The zones where flying of drones is restricted are called no drone zone

# a 5 km radius of an airport

# permanently or temporarily prohibited, restricted or danger areas

# over densely populated areas or over or near an area affecting public safety or where emergency operations are underway prior approval is needed

# 50 km from the international border

# 500 meters of the coastline

# 5 km of Vijay Chowk in New Delhi and from a mobile platform such as a moving vehicle, ship or aircraft.

Earlier during press conference Aviation Minister Raju has said that "Not having a regulation was amounting to a total ban. So, we needed to have a policy".

Industry has hailed the guidelines and said that now drones can be used for various fields

# Delivering packages

# Emergency services

# Environment monitoring

# providing wireless Internet in remote areas

Currently, Drones are restricted to photography and videography only.