Parcels by air: Drones take to city skies to deliver groceries | Delhi Latest News

Drones flying over tall apartment buildings, delivering essentials such as groceries, medicines, meals and parcels to their doors – a scene that seems straight out of a science fiction novel has become the new norm in many apartment buildings in Gurugram, and residents swear by timely deliveries made by machines.

One such apartment is Fresco, a gated community in Sector 50.

“The drones make about 40 flights a day to our apartment complex, delivering over 100 packages and reducing the traffic of delivery vehicles. These airlifts are now an integral part of our daily lives, supporting many quick commercial and other deliveries,” said RWA president Nilesh Tandon.

In recent years, drones have been used for aerial photography, agriculture, surveillance, and medical delivery, but a growing number of drone companies are now exploring opportunities in urban logistics.

Last year, Fresco partnered with Gurugram-based drone delivery company Skye Air — perhaps the first apartment complex in the country to sign up for drone delivery on a trial basis.

“Drone deliveries are the future of urban logistics. They are fast, efficient, sustainable and help eliminate carbon emissions and traffic congestion. They will also enhance last-mile deliveries in cities,” said Ankit Kumar, Founder and CEO, Skye Air.

“Currently, we deliver around 1,000 parcels a day to around 10 housing societies in Gurugram,” he said.

Skye Air has set up two hubs — in Sector 30 and Sector 71 — where e-commerce and fast-paced retail businesses send their parcels for delivery to customers. The parcels are sorted at the hub and loaded onto drones. The drone takes off from the hub and delivers to a pod installed in housing cooperatives, where a “skywalker” picks up the parcels and delivers them to individual flats.

“Currently, our drone, a hexacopter, flies about 2.5 km from the hub to the apartments, carrying a weight of about 5 kg,” Kumar said.

Ecom Express, a logistics company, delivers 150 to 200 parcels a day in Gurugram in partnership with Skye Air. “While we are in the early stages of drone delivery and flying large packages is still a challenge, the evolution of technology promises drone delivery as the future of the express delivery model,” said Vishwachetan Nadamani, COO at Ecom Express.

TechEagle, another Gurugram-based company, has also partnered with e-commerce clients and logistics companies. “We have conducted pilot programs in over 30 cities and started regular operations in Rishikesh, Guwahati, Bilaspur and Sectors 75, 76, 77, 78 and 79 of Gurugram. We deliver everything from food to groceries. We will start operations in Noida soon. We operate intercity flights between Chandigarh and Shimla,” said Vikram Singh Meena, CEO and Founder, TechEagle.

Noida-based TSAW Drones, another drone delivery company, is targeting intercity operations. The company recently tied up with Gurugram-based CABT Logistics to accelerate Kolkata’s express logistics ecosystem and is setting up 136 drone hubs across the country to enable drone deliveries in 24 cities across India.

“Currently, we have 27 drones and 19 nodes in use in cities like Noida, Meerut, Agra, Lucknow, Kanpur, Hyderabad and Nizamabad. We are creating a hub-and-spoke model that will connect small towns with larger cities. Currently, we operate around 75 flights a day between hubs, each flight covers a distance of around 70 km and carries 8 kg,” said Kishan Tiwari, CEO and founder of TSAW Drones, which uses VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) drones for intercity flights.

A VTOL drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can take off, hover and land vertically like a helicopter. TSAW has set up a command and control centre (CCC) in Noida to oversee drone flights across the country, providing real-time updates, analysis and situational awareness.

Tiwari noted that around 90% of India currently lacks same-day delivery connectivity, especially in tier 2 and 3 cities where logistics companies have low penetration. “Road transport costs increase when trucks are not fully loaded, making partial deliveries to these areas very expensive. Drone delivery, costing approx ₹4 per km which is key here – for example from Noida to Meerut it costs approx ₹1,200. In addition, drones can also address the severe labor shortages in the logistics industry,” he said.

There is also an ecological benefit.

“Our long-range, heavy-lift drones are 20 times faster and 2.5 times cheaper than traditional methods, reducing carbon emissions by 98%. Flying at 120 km/h, they deliver within 30 minutes, consolidating multiple parcels per flight with a payload of 5 kg. This streamlines delivery from start to finish, reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency,” Meena said.

In India, the drone industry has received a major boost with the Drone Rules 2021, which introduced a more liberal regime for unmanned aircraft compared to the previous rules. Under these new rules, several requirements and approvals have been eliminated, simplifying drone operations for civilian operators. The government has introduced the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, which offers ₹120 crore over three years to make India a global drone hub by 2030.

Digital Sky, operated by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), serves as an online portal to manage drone operations in India. It has a map of drone airspace in India, dividing the country’s airspace into red, yellow and green zones. Operation of drones in the red and yellow zones requires permission from the central government and air traffic control authorities, respectively.

“The current regulations, though very liberal, are not clear on BVLOS (Beyond Line of Sight) operations, which are essential for intercity cargo delivery. While BVLOS activities are not prohibited, clear regulatory guidelines are needed. The industry is actively engaging with the government and is hopeful that BVLOS guidelines will be issued soon,” Tiwari said. BVLOS refers to drone operations conducted beyond the pilot’s line of sight (500 metres), as opposed to VLOS (Visual Line of Sight).

However, despite regulatory progress, major Indian cities remain mostly in red zones. “Currently, scaling up intracity drone deliveries has its challenges as most major cities are in red zones,” Kumar said.

Meena stressed the importance of enhancing the Digital Sky platform to manage real-time operations in red zones. “But the industry also needs to demonstrate the ability to produce drones at scale, including emergency safety features,” he said.