DGCA, India’s civil aviation regulator, has approved third-parties to carry out certification of civilian drones. The Quality Council of India (QCI) will choose the third-party certification bodies soon, according to Amber Dubey, joint secretary at the Civil Aviation Ministry, and incharge of the drones division. The move is expected to increase exports of Indian made drones. Who can be a certification body? Only a “legal entity” can be accredited as a certification body — so that it can be legally held responsible for its work irrespective of whether the entire organisation or a part of it performs the certification functions. QCI explained that certification bodies which are part of government, or are government departments, will be deemed as legal entities on the basis of their governmental status. It is not clear how a non-government body can be made a “legal entity” in this case. Drones compliant with the “no permission no takeoff” (NPNT) protocol will also be certified by certification bodies, and the process will ensure that they meet applicable regulatory requirements and international acceptability. The scheme is applicable to both domestic drone manufacturers, as well as drone importers. The certification system will be based on international standards (ISO/IEC 17067:2013). Bodies chosen by the QCI will “eventually” be accredited as per the international standard ISO 17065, by the National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies (NABCB), a constituent Board of the QCI. India's draft drone rules, which were published earlier this year mandate that drones have a “Certificate of Manufacture” to…
Please subscribe to MediaNama. Don't share prints and PDFs.
You May Also Like
News
Google has released a Google Travel Trends Report which states that branded budget hotel search queries grew 179% year over year (YOY) in India, in...
Advert
135 job openings in over 60 companies are listed at our free Digital and Mobile Job Board: If you’re looking for a job, or...
News
By Aroon Deep and Aditya Chunduru You’re reading it here first: Twitter has complied with government requests to censor 52 tweets that mostly criticised...
News
Rajesh Kumar* doesn’t have many enemies in life. But, Uber, for which he drives a cab everyday, is starting to look like one, he...