According to sources coming out from India, the e-comm giant Flipkart has teamed up with the Telangana state government to lead a consortium tasked with the development and execution of the drone deliveries.
These drones will supply medicines to remote areas under the ‘Medicines from the Sky’ project. As you might have expected it will fall on Flipkart to implement drone technology for the successful deployment of the drones and also enable the smooth delivery of vaccines and medical supplies.
This development comes amidst the time when India is facing a severe shortage of supplies of COVID-19 vaccines. The condition is worsening in the country which has been affected the worst in the pandemic’s third wave.
The new drone medicine initiative will be supported with technologies such as geo-mapping, routing of shipments and track and trace of location, etc. all this has been developed and studied by e-commerce giant over the years in serving millions of customers across the country.
“The COVID-19 crisis has pushed the envelope in the rapid development of scalable and robust technologies and the Medicines from the Sky project is a testament to that. It is a decisive step in making use of cutting-edge technologies for the safety and wellbeing of the masses,” stated Flipkart Senior Vice-President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Rajneesh Kumar.
He further stated that the company is proud to partner with the Telangana government in leading the consortium by utilizing its nuanced understanding of the supply chain and technologies. The project is also conceived by World Economic Forum and Healthnet Global Limited that outlines the requirements for drone delivery and how to assess proposals.
“This pilot will set the premise for the utilization of drone systems in providing healthcare and product delivery in remote areas and even during disasters. Using drones to deliver healthcare supplies to people in remote and inaccessible areas is a one-of-a-kind initiative ever undertaken in our country and we are happy to lead this initiative in collaboration with partners such as Flipkart. This will go a long way in testing best-in-class technology solutions to tide over future crises.”
