The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on 26 January 2022 notified a drone certification scheme to ensure minimum safety and quality requirements as it will boost indigenous manufacturing. The drone certification scheme notified under Rule 7 of the liberalized Drone Rules, 2021 will help in simpler, faster and transparent type-certification of drones.

What

  1. Along with the liberalised drone rules, airspace map, the PLI (production-linked incentive) scheme and the single window DigitalSky Platform, this will help drone manufacturing industry in India, grow.
  2. The MoCA had on 16 September last year approved a PLI scheme for drones and drone components with an allocation of Rs 120 crore spread over three financial years.
  3. The PLI scheme came as a follow-through of the liberalised Drone Rules, 2021, released by the MoCA on 25 August 2021.
  4. The objective of this Drone Certification Scheme (DCS) is to provide the minimum requirements for airworthiness -- safety and security requirements -- for drones and enable their evaluation for certification.
  5. A multi-stakeholder steering committee (MSC) will oversee the scheme, along with a QCI (Quality Control of India) secretariat.
  6. This MSC will also be supported by a technical committee (TC) and a certification committee (CC) that will be constituted by the QCI.