Suddenly every marketer worth his salt wants to use drones - unmanned aircraft controlled by a remote pilot or on-board computers to you and me - to deliver their pizzas and tablets and everything in between at the customer's doorstep. The clamour started after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told journalists last year that the e-commerce giant is working on a "secret" R&D project aimed at delivering packages to the customer's address via "octocopter" mini-drones with a mere 30-minute delivery time. He said his project requires safety testing and many US Federal Aviation Administration approvals. But he estimated that drone delivery, tentatively branded Amazon "Prime Air", will take off as soon as five years. Within months, Google built and tested self-flying drones designed to deliver packages.
In no time, there were reports in the Indian media that e-tailer Jabong.com has tested drones for product delivery at its warehouse in Manesar, Haryana. More such test-deliveries by other e-tailers followed. Then in May, a four-rotor unmanned drone took off from Francesco's Pizzeria, a pizza outlet in Lower Parel (Mumbai), as part of a test mission to deliver pizzas in Worli. Companies in the agriculture and energy fields are also asking for permission to fly drones, it is reported.
The thing to remember here is that the technology is not new. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were reported to have been used first in the Balkan wars of the nineties, and since then in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Their use has grown quickly in recent years because unlike manned aircraft they can fly for many hours, they can reach locations where sending flight crew can prove dangerous or it is simply impossible and they are supposedly much cheaper than military aircraft. That said, their use is still more or less confined to two specific areas: in reconnaissance and surveillance and in armed combat. In other words, there is very little "civilian" or "commercial" use of drones at this point.
But look at the potential, say hobbyists and dialled-in e-commerce investors. Drones can be summoned to ferry packages from one location to another in a jiffy, meeting that thing about instant fulfilment that online shoppers seek. Think about reaching medical or mechanical supplies in situations where getting those items without wasting time can save lives. Already, drones are being used to facilitate search and rescue missions; they are being deployed to provide broadband connectivity to places where it would otherwise be unavailable.
So why are we not using them more often? The biggest obstacle to drone adoption so far is not technological, but legislative and economic. First, the cost involved: for drones to see mass adoption in India, prices have to come down dramatically. Francesco's Pizzeria, which tried that drone-delivery earlier this year, later told the media that the idea is completely unsustainable at this point. A customised drone for such delivery could cost around $2,000, the company said. And its basic pizza sells at Rs 300-400, which doesn't really justify the investment in drones.
Now come to the legislation in this regard. Drones currently fall within a grey area of Indian law. As a first step of sorts, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation issued a directive last month banning the use of UAVs for civilian applications till official notifications were made in this regard. The aviation authority believes that aerial collisions and accidents are a real threat given that India already has heavy manned aircraft traffic. And citizens, already concerned about their right to privacy, worry that personal drones can be invasive.
Such concerns are valid and highlight the need for more work on policies for such applications that could open up entirely new approaches to moving goods, options that could be cheaper, faster and more environment-sensitive than what's possible today.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
