Uttarakhand to become first state in India deploying drone delivery in Health-care
Dehradun : Redcliffe Labs, a unit of Redcliffe Lifetech in the U.S., after pioneering the first commercial drone flight in Indian Diagnostic industry, opened its first commercial Drone corridor in the remote hills, Uttarkashi to Dehradun on 19th May.
The recently concluded project was a part of Redcliffe and Skye Air tie-up. Over past 3 months they have done 40 successful trials in North India.
Bringing further relief to the residents of Uttarkashi, Redcliffe Labs from 10th June will be operating two flights daily for both routine and specialized tests sample collection, in an attempt to bring affordable & high-quality diagnostic services.
With this Redcliffe Labs will also add on to its extensive and ever-growing network of collection centres in over 120+ cities making diagnostic care accessible to the remotest areas of the country.
Commenting on this development of taking its services to the hilly terrain, Dheeraj Jain, Founder, Redcliffe Labs said, “Our agenda of opening the first commercial Drone corridor in the remote hills of Uttarkashi is purely based on the concept of ‘flying with purpose’. Uttarkashi is one of the remotest but very important town of Uttarakhand. Moreover, this was a record of doing Dx in one of the difficult T5 town connectivity. Redcliffe Labs collected samples from local clinics who have so far struggled to get Dx samples collected. Consequently, it takes weeks to get the report. With opening of the new commercial corridor this the turnaround time (TAT) is reduced to 24 hours.
This will help Redcliffe Labs move ahead in its journey of providing affordable & high-quality diagnostic services to people across the Indian subcontinent. Moving ahead with initiatives like this we will be able to connect the remotest corners, hilly regions and other tough to reach terrains, to all our labs and change the landscape of diagnostics in India.
Our team is thrilled to connect the people of Uttarkashi with our Lab services, especially as Uttarkashi is a geography with poor road connectivity, people have limited access to quality diagnostic services. Now with easy and quality access people no longer have to travel to the bigger cities for meeting their diagnostic needs.”
Uttarkashi to Dehradun by road is 144 km, 6-8 hours by road and 12 hours during a landslide. But using drone technology this distance was covered in 88 minutes with one battery swap in between.
Redcliffe Lab, delivered 5 kg payload in temperature-controlled boxes from Gyansu, Uttarkashi to Vivek Vihar, Dehradun, which is 60 KM aerial distance.
It is also worthwhile to mention that the diagnostic service provider aims to reach 500M+ Indians by 2027.
“Redcliffe Labs is planning to expand its operations in the country through a series of upcoming initiatives in the next 12 months. By leveraging the drone technology to collect Dx samples is one such initiative.” further said Dheeraj Jain