Bengaluru: Garuda Aerospace, the country's largest drone start-up, has been deployed as a surveillance and delivery drone in case of floods in Gujarat's Vadodara and Andhra Pradesh's Guntur. Drones are being used to deliver food and essential medicines. Agniveswar Jayaprakash, Founder and CEO, Garuda Aerospace said, “Following the successful use of drones to help flood victims in Assam, the NDRF has deployed two more to deal with the flood situation in Vadodara in Gujarat and Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. Garuda Aerospace teams have been deployed. These surveillance and distribution drones will help the NDRF officials in this situation.”
A National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) official said, “Personally, I feel that drones will play an important role in the rescue operations of NDRF now and in future. These drones were manufactured by Garuda Aerospace for food delivery company Swiggy but they were used to deliver essential items like food, water and medicines to the victims and survivors of Assam floods.
300 drones and over 500 pilots across India
Garuda Aerospace has been the preferred drone partner for the NDRF since the COVID-19 pandemic. Drones were also used on a large scale in the Chamoli Glacier disaster in Uttarakhand last year. Jaiprakash said, “With 300 drones and more than 500 pilots across India, Garuda Aerospace can deal with any type of disaster. The company has been strengthened by the corpus of three crores at a valuation of 25 crores. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the former captain of the Indian cricket team, has recently invested in the start-up and he has also become its first brand ambassador.