No Permission No Takeoff Policy UPSC
Source : PIB
GS II : Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential; citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures

Why in News ?

Ministry of Civil Aviation has granted permission of No-Permission-No-Takeoff (NPNT) compliant drone operations at 166 additional green zones to facilitate, smoothen, and promote drone operations in the country.

Key Facts

• The approved sites allow drone usage up to 400 ft Above Ground Level (AGL).
• These zones are in addition to the Sixty-Six green zone sites approved earlier.
• The list of the approved green zone sites can be accessed from the Digital Sky Platform.
• Drone flights in the green zone sites shall be compliant with the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Rules, 2021 dated 12th March 2021 and other relevant orders/ guidelines issued by the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

No-Permission-No-Takeoff

• Every UAS / RPAS (Unmanned Aircraft / Remote Piloted Aircraft System) sold in India are under the regulations published by DGCA for UAS / RPAS must have a secure mechanism built on to the equipment to self-authenticate its permission to take-off.
  • This technology framework is referred to as NPNT (No Permission No Take-off).

    

• Under NPNT or ‘No Permission – No Take-off compliance every Remotely Piloted Aircraft (except Nano) has to obtain valid permission through the Digital Sky platform before operating in India.
• The framework mandates users to register on the online portal that acts as the national unmanned traffic management system for remotely piloted aircraft.
• Flying in these approved green-zones will require only intimation of the time and location of the flights via the Digital Sky portal or the app.
• What happen if not register ?
  • If a NPNT compliant drone tries to breach or go beyond the permissible boundary in the airspace the in-built software will compel the drone to return to home.
• What is the need of Frame Work ?
  • The framework plays an important role in ensuring various measure of safety and security of a flight by enforcing UAS / RPAS not to take-off without a digitally signed permission from DigitalSky.
• Recently Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) have granted conditional exemption to the Government of Telangana for conducting experimental Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone flights for delivery of vaccines.

Digital Sky portal or the App

• DigitalSky is a Ministry of Civil Aviation initiative.
• It is a highly secure and scalable platform which supports technology framework such as NPNT (No permission no take-off) designed for enabling flights permission digitally and managing Unmanned Aircraft operations and traffic efficiently.
• The DigitalSky platform offers various services and workflows though a host of applications available on the web and mobile platforms.
• In short the permission is made possible through a digitally signed document called a Permission Artefact (machine-readable) which when read by the equipment establishes its authenticity and permission to fly.

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