India registers 29,500 drones as Govt sets up database

About 29,500 drones are now registered in the country as the government has initiated move to create a database of such unmanned flying devices to keep a track of them.

"The idea is to keep a database on drones in the country," a senior government official said. "Any drones beyond the ones registered would not be part of our system and cannot be used as openly as the registered ones."

The government had provided an option for drone users to register their drone and generate a drone acknowledgement number, or DAN, by the end of November and 29,459 DANs were issued, the official said.


Those who want to use their drones for commercial purposes must generate a separate unique identification number (UIN), he said. A drone cannot be used for commercial purposes unless it has UIN.

"The government's focus on drones is mainly on using it for the agricultural and other essential item delivery in rural areas as well as for our defence forces in terms of usage," the official said. "The focus is also equally strong on manufacturing drones in India and that is why the government has announced a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for drone manufacturing."

The PLI scheme offers an incentive of 20% of the value addition made by a manufacturer of drones and drone components and the government expects the incentive to see an investment of over Rs 5,000 crore over the next three years beginning the current fiscal.

The official said the government would also want to check the import of drones any further, which will help give a boost to drone manufacturing in India.

Drone manufacturers also feel that a check on fully-built units will give a boost to local manufacturing.

"Typically, about 40% of the components in a drone are still being imported today and the import dependence can be reduced to 20% within a couple of years," said Neel Mehta, director and co-founder of Asteria Aerospace, a Bengaluru-based drone solutions developer. "It is expected that the government will put some restrictions on importing drones, as that will give a boost to local drone manufacturing in India."