A delivery drone, carrying a box filled with vials of blood, fell on the tracks of the Delhi Metro’s Magenta Line afternoon, causing panic and disrupting services for nearly an hour.
Police officials said the drone belonged to a Noida-based private pharma company and it accidentally fell on the tracks. “The pharma company has all the papers and required licences for drones. They use drones to supply medicines or carry samples at times,” said a senior police officer. No case has been registered, police said.
While drone delivery has proven to be of help in rough terrains of Himachal, Ladakh and Uttarakhand, companies in Delhi NCR have also started providing drone delivery facilities, and some are also conducting trial runs for the same. A delivery drone, carrying a box filled with vials of blood, fell on the tracks of the Delhi Metro’s Magenta Line afternoon, causing panic and disrupting services for nearly an hour.
Police officials said the drone belonged to a Noida-based private pharma company and it accidentally fell on the tracks. “The pharma company has all the papers and required licences for drones. They use drones to supply medicines or carry samples at times,” said a senior police officer. No case has been registered, police said.
While drone delivery has proven to be of help in rough terrains of Himachal, Ladakh and Uttarakhand, companies in Delhi NCR have also started providing drone delivery facilities, and some are also conducting trial runs for the same.
According to Gaurav Agarwal, the co-founder and CTO of Tata 1mg, a healthcare platform that provides e-pharmacy, diagnostics and e-consultation services, said they have commenced the initiative in Dehradun, Noida, and Delhi, and expanded in other cities based on need and regulatory clearances. He said that as of now, the company is not delivering anything to customers via drone.
“The drones are being used to collect medical samples from various parts of the city and transport them to the Tata 1mg lab for processing. They will also be used to deliver medicines to distant areas. A single drone is able to carry a payload of up to 150 samples. All components of the sample transportation supply chain, including drones, are temperature-controlled, and equipped with technology to continuously monitor temperature during the flight to the lab,” he added.
