‘Medicines from the Sky’ Project 

• The Telangana government has selected 16 primary healthcare centres (PHCs) spread around Vikarabad area hospital for pilot testing the ambitious ‘Medicine from the sky’, the first-of-its-kind project involving delivery of medicines through multiple drones. 

About Medicines from the Sky project 

• The project involves delivery of medicines through multiple drones. The project is being launched following the approval granted by the Civil Aviation Ministry. 

• Consortium has been tasked with development and execution of drone deliveries of medical supplies to remote areas under the project. 

• Drone delivery of supplies will be complemented with technologies like geo mapping, trace of location and routing of shipments. 

• Technologies have been developed by Flipkart over years in serving millions of customers across India. 

• These technologies will be used to conduct ‘Beyond Visual Line of Sight’ (BVLOS) deliveries in remote areas in Telangana where road infrastructure is not conducive to deliver vaccines faster. 

• This project is conceived by World Economic Forum and Healthnet Global Limited which outlines the requirements for drone delivery and assesses proposals. 

What is Beyond Visual Line of Sight? 

• BVLOS is a term relating to the operation of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and drones at distances outside the normal visible range of the pilot. 

• BVLOS drone operations provide numerous advantages over regular line-of-sight flying.