Gurugram-based start-up TechEagle on Tuesday said its drone has successfully delivered a mail in Gujarat under a pilot project in collaboration with India Post, which could pave the way for postal deliveries by drones in the future.
The first such drone flight delivered the parcel in the Kutch region of Gujarat in less than half an hour, travelling a distance of 46 km, with a five-times faster speed than surface transportation, the deep-tech drone technology start-up said in a release.
TechEagle had launched the country's fastest hybrid-electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) 100-km range drone 'VertiplaneX3,' with a payload capacity of 3-kg and a top speed of 120 km per hour, last month.
It has the capability to take off and land vertically like a helicopter from a small area of 5mX5m.
VertiplaneX3 was showcased by the firm during the recently-concluded Drone Mahotsav in New Delhi.
The pilot project was aimed at testing the operational and technical feasibility of drone deliveries in the region along with commercial scalability, TechEagle said.
With the success of this pilot project, it will now be possible to make postal deliveries by drone in the future, it stated.
On May 27, TechEagle's Vertiplane X3 delivered India Post's mail from Habay village in Bhuj taluka to Ner village in Bhachau taluka of Kutch district in Gujarat, said Vikram Singh Meena, founder-CEO, TechEagle.
"It was quite remarkable for the drone delivery revolution in the country as it was the longest Drone delivery in a single flight and that too in a harsh weather environment with a wind speed of more than 30 km/hour," he said.
Emphasising that the technology needs to create real value for society by providing better accessibility to services, Anshu Abhishek, co-founder-COO at TechEagle said, "The TechEagle is proud to partner with India Post, which is the most widely-distributed postal department in the world, to deliver parcels to remote and rural areas".
This project was aimed at enabling faster deliveries across the country be it in urban cities or any rural village, he said.
"The learnings from the project would help stakeholders to scale up and commercialise the drone delivery of mail across the country," he added.