Drone Rules 2021
Topic: Remote Sensing, GIS and GNSS · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Drone Rules 2021 are India's rules for flying drones, notified in August 2021. They replaced a long approval process with far fewer forms and fees. The sky over India is split into green, yellow and red airspace zones. These zones are shown on the Digital Sky platform, an online government map and permission system. In green zones, small drones can fly without asking first. Yellow zones need permission, and red zones are closed to drones except in special cases. This made drones cheap and easy to use for mapping and surveys.
Example
Under the SVAMITVA scheme (started 24 April 2020), the Survey of India flies drones over inhabited village land across India and maps each plot. Owners then get property cards, which help them get loans and reduce land disputes. The easier 2021 rules made this kind of mapping simpler to run.
Don't confuse with
- Geospatial guidelines 2021: these (February 2021) freed the collection and publishing of maps and map data. The Drone Rules control who may fly drones and where.
Related concepts
- Bhuvan
- Geotagging
- National Spatial Data Infrastructure
- Geospatial guidelines 2021
- SVAMITVA scheme
- National Geospatial Policy 2022
- FASAL