For the first time in India drone used to deliver medicine

For the first time in India, a drone on Friday was successfully deployed to deliver medicines to a remote primary health center in Meghalaya’s West Khasi Hils district, 25 km away from the district headquarter, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said.

“Today we launched a pilot of India’s 1st Medicine Delivery via Hybrid e-VTOL drone in #Meghalaya from Nongstoin to Maweit PHC covering a distance of 25 kms in less than 25 mins,” Conrad said on his social media handles.

According to the Chief Minister, the tech support was provided by the innovation team Tech Eagle, Smart Village Movement in collaboration with the State Health Department. Sources said an e-VTOL (Virtual take-off and landing) Drone AquilaX2 was used for the deliveries.

A senior health department official said the deployment of a drone to deliver medicines was undertaken on a pilot basis and today’s deployment was successful, reducing the time from 3 hours to less than half an hour.