Shillong: The Meghalaya government unveiled Northeast’s First Drone Delivery Hub and Network, in partnership with drone delivery start-up TechEagle.
The ground-breaking effort intends to improve universal access to healthcare in Meghalaya by delivering vital supplies like drugs, diagnostic samples, vaccines, blood and blood components quickly and safely to different regions of the state using a dedicated Drone Delivery Network.
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The commencement of project began with the inauguration of Asia’s First Drone Delivery Hub built at the Jengjal Sub-Divisional Hospital on Monday by Minister James Sangma.
On the same day, the first official drone flight took off from Jengjal Sub Divisional Hospital (Hub) and delivered medicines to Padeldoba PHC in less than 30 mins which would have otherwise taken 2.5 hours by road.
TechEagle’s Vertiplane X3 Drone delivered different healthcare products including Snake venom-2 pax, Labetalol- 4 pax, Human Albumin-1 pax, Cefotaxime (typhoid dose) 50 pax in its first flight which was 5X faster in comparison to ground transportation.
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“We are seeing something that is unparalleled in any place of the world. It is a matter of pride for the State of Meghalaya that we would be the first state to institutionalize this initiative and have a system that can be expanded to other areas of the State as well,” minister Sangma said.
Ramkumar S, Project Director, Meghalaya Health Systems Strengthening Project stated “I’m very happy that we are able to start such an initiative in the State, which aims at providing access to life-saving drugs and other medical essentials to far-flung and hard-to-reach areas of the State.’’
He added, “The drone station is meant for regular delivery of medicines, vaccines, blood samples, anti-venoms, etc.”
The significant challenges in last-mile delivery call for an approach to revolutionize the conventional delivery system.
With Northeast’s First Drone Delivery Network, the solution provided by TechEagle overcomes the problem of lack of visibility, high delivery costs, outdated technology and inaccessibility through roads and railway networks.
Vikram Singh, CEO & Founder of TechEagle, said, “Transforming the logistics and healthcare supply chain is at the heart of TechEagle’s vision and this initiative is a first big step forward in the direction of achieving the goal of universal access to healthcare and logistics across the world. We are thankful to the Govt of Meghalaya & MHSSP to provide us this opportunity to create a larger impact on grass root level.”