Drone Mission State Govt seeks to involve technical institutes for project implementation

By Vikas Vaidya

To implement the Drone Mission, an ambitious project of Maharashtra Government, Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister, had sought the assistance of technical institutions (educational). Accordingly, with Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai that had submitted Drone Mission Project report, the regional engineering colleges, technological institutes will be the part of the mission. It was in June 2023 that the Deputy Chief Minister had asked the officials to develop Maharashtra Drone Hub in State. The notification for the Drone Mission was issued in the last week of December, according to which every area will be covered under Drone Mission. The Government believes that the mission would help in enhancing the quality of services in sectors such as security surveillance, rescue and relief work during disasters, delivery of emergency medicines and vaccines to remote areas, monitoring of infrastructure projects and traffic management, said a source. Government has given an approval of over Rs 238 crore for five years for the implementation of the Drone Mission. The funds will be distributed through Higher and Technical Education Department to IIT, Mumbai; regional centres, district-level centres.

A brainchild of Devendra Fadnavis, this Drone Mission will give a major boost to the development and use of drone technology in State. The government plans to take help of engineering education and research institutes, government agencies, industrial establishment. Various divisional-level and district-wise network of drones would be established. Agencies of various administrative departments, regional engineering colleges will have active participation in the implementation of Drone Mission. District-level drone centres would be set up at 12 places while regional drone centres would be developed at 6 venues. IIT-Mumbai will be the headquarters of the drone centres. A committee headed by the Chief Secretary will oversee the implementation of a five year plan drafted on the basis of the report prepared by a team of experts from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Bombay. The Chief Secretary (Dr Nitin Karir)-headed team would monitor it. The committee has Director of Technical Education (presently Dr Vinod Mohitkar) as Member Secretary. The other members include Additional Chief Secretaries of Home (Radhika Rastogi), Finance and PWD (Manisha Mhaiskar), Principal Secretaries of Urban Development, Higher and Technical Education (Vikas Rastogi), Planning (Saurabh Vijay), Energy (Lokesh Chandra), Information and Technology, Industry, Water Resources, Rural Development and Water Resources, Agriculture, Disaster Management, Public Health (Milind Mhaiskar), Skill Development (Ashish Kumar Singh), Director General of Police, Director of Maharashtra Remote Sensing Application Centre, Nagpur; Dean (Research and Development), Dr Arnab Maiti, Associate Professor, IIT, Mumbai.

This committee will take decision regarding the implementation of drone mission project, maintain departmental coordination with various administrative departments, look after the availability of funds, review the project implementation, the interchange of the available funds among internal components as per the need etc. The drones would be used for the delivery of medicines and vaccines too where administration finds difficult to reach. The technology will be used during floods, landslides, helping rescue operations. The drones would also assist administration in understanding the effect of the disaster and take precautionary steps. These days traffic management is a very critical area. Every city witnesses traffic chaos once in a week leading it to creating law and order situation. Under Drone mission the traffic management is given the priority. In most smart cities one would find CCTV everywhere. But to check those CCTV police have to dedicate one person at the Smart City Office. Under Drone Mission Police department don’t have to spare any human resource. Drone technology would handle all those things in a scrupulous manner. Dr Y B Kathpatal, Professor at Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT) told ‘The Hitavada’, “It is a welcoming move of Maharashtra Government. Drone Technology is the future of the globe. We had conducted a research and did practical use of this technology in agriculture. We can check the quality of soil, which crop can be cultivated in which soil, how much water requires for that particular land etc. There are several usage of this technology which we can avail for all sectors. It will help us enhancing the quality life.”