You are reading it here first: India now has a dedicated Drones Directorate that will solely focus on managing the drones ecosystem in the country. The civil aviation regulator, DGCA, obtained the permission to set up the Directorate from the Finance Ministry, and the department — to begin with — will have eight officials from the DGCA, but will be expanded over time, Amber Dubey, joint secretary at the Civil Aviation Ministry said on Monday. “This is a pleasant surprise since under the pandemic related austerity measures, formation of any new department undergoes extreme scrutiny. One more baby step towards making India the drone capital of the world,” Dubey wrote. At the moment it is unclear who the eight members of this department are, and we have reached out to the Civil Aviation Ministry for more details. An industry source told MediaNama that the Directorate will have its own financial budget, which is presumably why the DGCA had to receive approval from the Finance Ministry. Another industry source said that the Directorate will help in creating more focus on the drones’ ecosystem, given that both DGCA, and the Civil Aviation Ministry have traditionally prioritised civil aviation operations over drones. "Getting a single function to look at all the aspects of operations is going to reduce the need for running around to get a complete picture. We see this as a much needed focused measure where all the functions are equally motivated to do dedicated efforts on making India the drone capital…
