Skye Air teams up with the Himachal govt for delivery of medicines and agri commodities via drones

Drone delivery-tech firm Skye Air has teamed up with the Himachal Pradesh government for the delivery of medicines and agri commodities in the Himalayan state.

As part of the strategic partnership with the state’s information technology department, Skye Air has initiated a three-day-long BVLOS trial in the Chamba district to connect over six primary healthcare and community healthcare centres and the area hospitals via multiple flights, the company said. Skye Air said it is using its flagship drone Skye Ship One to facilitate real-time deliveries of vaccines and medicines within a specified temperature range of 2-8 degrees Celsius.

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It added that there will be several reverse logistics flights that will also be performed to help the adoption of drone technology to enable cost-effective deliveries within the state. The flights, equipped with consignments of medical supplies, flew beyond at an altitude of 400 feet above ground level in a designated Green Zone of the Chamba district. The flights took place at three air corridors Chaned, Tissa and Mehla demonstrating the diversity of Skye Ship One adopting different temperature zones, steep mountain ranges and air-pockets, it said.

“We are elated at our new partnership with the Himachal Pradesh government and we look forward to bringing better healthcare accessibility within the remotest parts of the state. “As a beginning, we will be conducting around 25 flights during the trial phase taking up hard weather and terrain challenges,” Swapnik Jakkampundi, co-founder of Skye Air, said.

In the coming months, Skye Air is looking forward to enabling commercial flights in the district, he added. “The demonstration in Chamba will help in ascertaining the advantages of drone use in medicine delivery and benefits of drone-enabled governance,” said Mukesh Repaswal, director (IT department), Himachal Pradesh.

He added that the use of drones can be a critical intervention in improving the ease of access to services in mountainous and remote regions of Himachal Pradesh. “We look forward to the successful conduct of the BVLOS trials in Chamba and further collaboration with Skye Air to expand the drone-based delivery ecosystem in Himachal Pradesh to medical and agri-commodity deliveries,” Repaswal said.