In a bid to facilitate operations of “No Permission No Take-off” (NPNT) complaint drones, the Ministry of Civil Aviation on 24th March, 2021 approved 34 more green zone sites across the country. In February this year, the ministry had approved 26 green zones and approval for 6 sites were given earlier, now total tally is 66 green sites. Green zones are essentially uncontrolled airspaces where an Air Traffic Control (ATC) service is not necessary.
NPNT is an automated green signal without which drones are not authorized to fly. The latest airspaces to get approval are in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh. Jharkhand got the maximum sites. Digital Sky is the platform which is currently being developed to handle these automatic flight authorizations. However, the portal has seen several delays so far.
What is Digital Sky Platform?
The Digital Sky Platform came into force on 1st December, 2018 but still it is not fully functional and not fully ready to support authorizations for NPNT compliant drones.
These are basically guidelines issued by the Director General of Civil aviation (DGCA) for commercial use of drones or remotely operated aircraft. Under this regulation, The Digital Sky Platform will enable online registrations of pilots, devices, service providers and NPNT. This platform is a unique unmanned traffic management (UTM) system which will facilitate registration and licensing of drones and operators. The airspace has been partitioned into Red zone (Flying not Permitted), Yellow Zone (Controlled Airspace) and Green Zone (automatic permission). The restricted locations are airports, near international borders, near coast line, state secretariat, military installations, and complex strategic locations.
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