Once the Drone Flying Policy-2019 is approved, people will be able to fly drones in certain areas without prior permission. It is understood that big drones will be brought under policy.
Chairman of Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB), Air Vice Marshal Md Mofidur Rahman, said: “Drones are used for a variety of work but these often pose a challenge to security and so, a policy is being worked out.”
Drones will be divided into four categories: 1. Entertainment, 2. Education, 3. Survey and photos and 4. Security uses by the state.
Entertainment includes drone flying for fun by children or any person or group. Though flying a drone is legal, its import is not. On November 2015, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) imposed a restriction on the import of drones. The policy states that following guidelines, drones can be imported but if the machine is more than 15kg in weight then the ministry of defence has to be notified and a no objection certificate taken.
The flying zones have also been worked out: green, yellow and red, and the areas in specific colours will be available via mobile apps. No permission will be required to fly drones in green areas, but those cannot be flown higher than 50 feet outside 3km of the airport, and 100 feet outside a 5km radius.
Defence and public places are yellow zones and special permission will be needed in red zones.
As per the draft policy, no objection clearances will be needed from six bodies: aviation security centre, defence intelligence, national security intelligence, aviation intelligence, police head quarters and border guard head quarters.
The policy also says that before flying drones, the police of respective areas need to be notified and the drone operator has to know if there is any VIP movement within 5km of the flying area. All flying will be suspended during and after one hour of VIP movement.
If the rules are breached then the drone operator can be arrested by security intelligence or the police and punished under existing law.
Member of civil aviation, Md Ziaul Huq, says: “To fly a drone, an application has to be made 45 days in advance and after clearance from several bodies, the permission is given. We are trying to make the process simpler so online applications can be made to all bodies simultaneously.”