Uttarakhand Drone Promotion and Usage Policy

What is the Uttarakhand Drone Policy?

Uttarakhand Drone Promotion and Usage Policy, commonly written as the Uttarakhand Drone Policy, or drone niti; is the state's dedicated policy for the drone sector, notified in 2023 by the Government of Uttarakhand and administered by the Information Technology Development Agency (ITDA) under the Department of Information Technology.

According to the policy document published on the state's investment portal, Uttarakhand aims to become a hub for manufacturing, R&D, training, repair and maintenance of drones, and at the same time to push drone-based governance and public service delivery across departments. The stated logic is geographic: a state of hilly terrain, dispersed settlements and scattered economic hubs is exactly the kind of place where an unmanned aerial vehicle does work that a road or a person cannot do cheaply.

Uttarakhand was among the first states to set up a Drone Application and Research Centre (DARC), a joint initiative of ITDA and the National Technical Research Organisation. Under this policy, the personnel and responsibilities of DARC are taken over by a new State Drone Coordination Cell (SDCC).

Main features

• A State-level supported Committee chaired by the Chief Secretary, with the Secretary (IT) as Member Secretary, overseeing implementation and giving yearly budgetary approval.
• A State Drone Coordination Cell (SDCC) under ITDA, chaired by a State Officer for Drone Implementation (SODI) of Director or GM rank, with four external experts. SDCC is the nodal body for regulating and promoting drone usage.
• A Drone Coordinator post in every relevant department, to identify use cases and run pilots.
• Dedicated drone clusters with drone ports, testing facilities and recharging stations, and land for manufacturing allotted near them.
• Two existing ITIs: indicatively ITI Kashipur and ITI Kalsi: to be converted into Drone Centres of Excellence on a PPP basis, each with a DGCA-approved Remote Pilot Training Organisation.
• Drone system design and manufacturing and drone enabled services added to the priority sector list of the MSME policy.

Who is eligible under the Uttarakhand Drone Policy?

The policy defines two categories of eligible enterprise.

• DSDM; Drone System Design and Manufacturing enterprises: units designing, testing or manufacturing drones, drone components and assemblies for drone OEMs, including drone hardware, drone communication devices, electronic manufacturing services for drones and embedded software.
• DeS; Drone enabled Services enterprises: units using drone technology to provide services, drone-related training, repair, and any other drone enabled service that creates value addition.

You can claim incentives if:

• Your enterprise fits the DSDM or DeS definition and is located in Uttarakhand.
• You are a new enterprise commencing operations after the policy notification date, or an existing enterprise expanding by not less than 25% of its fixed capital investment during the operative period. This condition applies specifically to the DPR and lease rental incentives.
• Your unit is registered, acknowledged or taken on record by the SDCC or the relevant department.
• You can produce a certificate of commencement of commercial operations, production or delivery of services from the concerned department.

For the training incentives, eligibility is defined separately: all NAAC accredited private universities in Uttarakhand and all government colleges in the state may set up drone schools, provided they have at least 1 acre of land and a 250 sqm building, and meet DGCA and Sector Skill Council norms.

You are not eligible if:

• You are an individual buying a drone for personal, hobby or photography use. Uttarakhand Drone Promotion and Usage Policy is an industry policy and pays no personal benefit.
• Your enterprise has already availed similar benefits or incentives under another State Government or Government of India policy or scheme. The policy bars double-dipping unless it explicitly says otherwise.
• Your unit is located outside Uttarakhand.
• The expansion you are claiming for is less than 25% of existing fixed capital investment.
• Your DeS activity is recreational or tourism-related, the SGST-linked usage incentive is reserved for non-recreation, non-tourism drone usage.

What incentives does the Drone Policy give?

Two limits are worth reading closely. On land lease, subsidy is calculated on the actual lease rent or 12% of circle rate, whichever is lower. On built-up area, it is the actual lease rent or Rs 40 per sqft, whichever is lower. The DPR subsidy is paid after commercial operations begin, not at the planning stage. The drone school subsidy is released in five equal annual instalments starting after the first batch of students is admitted.

The state has also committed to preference for local enterprises: DSDM and DeS units registered in Uttarakhand get preference when the state government and its agencies procure drones, drone components and drone enabled services, and provisions to that effect are to be written into public tenders.

How to apply under the Uttarakhand Drone Policy

1. Confirm your category. Decide whether your unit is a DSDM or a DeS enterprise under the policy definitions, because the ceilings for lease rental subsidy differ sharply between the two.
2. Get registered with the SDCC. The policy makes registration, acknowledgement or being taken on record by the State Drone Coordination Cell under ITDA part of the definition of an eligible enterprise. Approach ITDA, Dehradun for this.
3. Complete your DGCA compliances. Register the drone on the Digital Sky platform and obtain a Unique Identification Number, and ensure pilots hold a Remote Pilot Certificate from a DGCA-approved RPTO. Operate only within the zones shown on the DGCA drone airspace map.
4. Commence commercial operations or production and obtain the certificate of commencement from the concerned department. Most incentives are payable only from this date.
5. Apply online on the ITDA website. The policy states that all incentive applications shall be made in online mode and that all claim approvals and disbursements shall be online. Upload the registration proof, commencement certificate and the claim-specific documents; DPR bills, lease deed and rent receipts, GST returns, or equipment invoices.
6. Claim annually where the incentive is annual. The non-recreational drone usage incentive is disbursed on an annual basis, and the lease rental subsidy runs year by year at declining percentages.
7. Check the SDCC decision and respond to any query. SDCC oversees incentives under this policy and the reimbursements and scholarships for drone skilling programmes.

What does the policy do beyond cash incentives?

Uttarakhand Drone Promotion and Usage Policy spends a large part of its text on capability rather than subsidy. The SDCC is tasked with formulating standard operating procedures for daytime and night drone operations, framing guidelines for beyond visual line of sight flights given the hilly terrain, identifying land pockets in green zones for drone ports, establishing a UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system, and empanelling DSDM and DeS firms so that government departments can onboard them quickly.

On skilling, relevant ITIs and polytechnic colleges are required to introduce a 6-month drone technician course and a 3-month drone service technician course at NSQF Level 4 (400 hours), plus short-term courses on drone operations. The Drone CoEs are to provide CNC machines, 3D printers and accredited drone testing laboratories for enterprises across the state, and to run apprenticeships through industry partnerships.

The annexure to the policy lists departmental use cases: aerial spraying and crop mapping in agriculture, last-mile PDS delivery, forest fire monitoring, vector-borne disease control in healthcare, land record digitisation through drone surveys, mining and landfill monitoring, traffic and crowd management in tourist areas, and supply of medicines and provisions to remote areas during disasters.

Why a claim gets rejected

• Not registered with the SDCC or not on record with the relevant department, which fails the definition of an eligible enterprise.
• Expansion below 25% of existing fixed capital investment, for an existing unit claiming DPR or lease rental incentives.
• Same benefit already taken under the IT and Electronics policy, MSME policy, start-up policy or a central scheme.
• Claim filed before commencement of commercial operations or production.
• Lease rent above the ceiling, the subsidy is capped at 12% of circle rate for land and Rs 40 per sqft for built-up area regardless of the rent paid.
• Input tax credit not exhausted before claiming net SGST. The policy defines net SGST as the amount paid through the cash ledger after utilising all eligible ITC.
• Recreational or tourism use, which is outside the usage incentive.
• Offline or paper application, when the policy requires online mode.

Excluded civil works also trip up claims: expenditure on a compound wall, approach road, administrative office building, toilets, labour rest rooms, sanitation room and security room does not count as eligible civil works.

Help and grievance redressal

• Information Technology Development Agency (ITDA), Dehradun: phone 0135-2608330, email diritda-uk@nic.in. ITDA is the nodal agency and hosts the State Drone Coordination Cell.
• State Drone Coordination Cell (SDCC), the policy requires SDCC to facilitate resolution of grievances of citizens, manufacturers and service providers through an online mechanism, and to assist enterprises in obtaining permits from DGCA and local authorities.
• District Industries Centres: DIC staff are to be sensitised to the policy and drone regulations so that entrepreneurs get help locally.
• DGCA Digital Sky platform, for drone registration, UIN and remote pilot certification, which are central requirements and not state ones.

Two figures in the policy are marked as indicative and are to be notified later: the corpus for the non-recreational drone usage incentive (indicated at Rs 15 crore) and the corpus for departmental pilot projects (indicated at Rs 10 crore). Applicants should confirm current corpus and scheme guidelines with ITDA before budgeting on them.