Drone delivers medicines in Meghalaya for first time

Shillong, Nov 27: In a first in the country, a drone was on Friday successfully deployed to deliver medicines to a remote primary health centre in Meghalaya's West Khasi Hils district, 25 kilometre away from the district headquarter, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said, according to a PTI report.

"Today we launched a pilot of India's 1st Medicine Delivery via Hybrid e-VTOL drone in #Meghalaya from Nongstoin to Maweit PHC covering a distance of 25 Kms in less than 25 mins," Mr Conrad said on his social media handles.

He said, "Drone technology can change the future of healthcare. This is a unique project that will transform the healthcare supply chain to a hard-to-reach population.

According to the Chief Minister, the tech support was provided by the innovation team Tech Eagle, Smart Village Movement in collaboration with the State Health department. Sources said an e-VTOL (Virtual take off and landing ) Drone AquilaX2 was used for the deliveries.

A senior health department official said the deployment of a drone to deliver medicines was undertaken on a pilot basis and today's deployment was successful, reducing the time from 3 hours to less than half an hour.

(PTI)