Why Hyderabad police banned drone permissions during Ganesh Chaturthi

Hyderabad: Citing various security reasons, the Hyderabad Police has appealed to the people not to apply permissions for flying drones to shoot the Ganesh festival.

In a statement, additional commissioner of police (Law and Order) Vikram Singh Mann said that the application for drone permission was rejected due to the following reasons:

1. The locations proposed by you fall under the restricted zone wherein several vital installations are located.

2. Several VVIPS will be travelling on these important routes and locations to attend various programmes in connection with the Ganesh festival. Flying a drone in the close vicinity of these VVIPS could pose a serious security hazard.

3. The drone will be covering areas which will be filled with hundreds of people. In such a scenario any technical fault with the drone could lead to a mishap and it could even be fatal for the crowd.

4. There is a serious risk of hazardous material and variable payload to be carried by a drone and it will be extremely dangerous if any untoward incident happens in a thickly crowded area of Ganesh congregation.

5. There are other means of getting good coverage of the event and it is not essential to fly a drone to cover it.

6. Prior permission should have been obtained from the Ministry of Civil Aviation for the usage of a drone and subject to following all rules and guidelines issued by DGCA, in vogue regarding the usage of drones.

7. Drones used for the purpose should be ‘type certified’ and ‘registered’ in the DigiSky platform.