India's Drone Regulation Paradox: Growth, Grey Markets, and Regulatory Gridlock
An in-depth analysis of how India's drone ecosystem evolved from blanket bans to Drone Rules 2021 — and why a thriving grey market, fragmented enforcement...
An in-depth analysis of how India's drone ecosystem evolved from blanket bans to Drone Rules 2021 — and why a thriving grey market, fragmented enforcement, and regulatory bottlenecks continue to undermine the world's most ambitious drone liberalisation agenda.
India's drone story is a study in contradictions.
The country that banned all civilian drone flights in 2014 now has one of the world's most liberalised regulatory frameworks.
Yet the gap between policy ambition and ground reality remains vast — filled by grey-market operators, confused enforcement agencies, and a bureaucratic apparatus that often works against the very ecosystem it created.
The Digital Sky Era: From Ban to Blueprint In 2018, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) launched Digital Sky — India's first attempt at a comprehensive drone management platform.
The idea was elegant: a single digital interface where operators could register drones, obtain flight permissions, and file flight plans.
The reality was less elegant.