In a first in the country, the Meghalaya government has used drones to deliver medicines to a remote primary health centre in West Khasi Hils district of the state.

“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,” Chief Minister Conrad Sangam said in a tweet on Friday.

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“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,” Sangma said.

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He said that 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.

According to a health department official, 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.