Importing a Drone in India or buying one and getting it into India is illegal. The Drone will get confiscated by custom officials and you are not going to get it anyway, well in fact there is a way but anyway it is not going to be that easy, it’s much easier to forget it.

Planning to import a drone in India?

There are many drones available at an attractive price tag that you can order from many international website and most of these offer free shipping too, so in all looks quite lucrative. However drones have been banned in India, you cannot import or get one from abroad.

In most cases (if you are unlucky) it will get confiscated by custom officials. Well technically drones are not banned but to import it you need permission and once you go through the permission criteria you are simply going to drop the idea of importing a drone in India.

Following Permission is needed to Import a drone in India

DGCA Permission letter (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) -> Mission impossible, unless you have some high end contacts.

Importing a drone in India

Buying drone abroad and getting it into India personally

Many do this and the same will get noticed by custom officials at airport and will either ask you to break the drone or leave it, you cannot take that with you.

What about drones available in India?

It is illegal to fly a drone in India without permission but selling a drone in India is legal. You can buy drones that are available in India but to fly drone you need permission. For drone that fly below 200 feet you need permit from you local administration and for drones that fly over 200 feet you need permit from the DGCA.

Also at least 90 days before you fly the drone you need to get a permit. This has been done for security reasons.

Where can you fly a drone without such permit?

If you have drone you can use them indoor in your house, in a hall, you should avoid flying it in cities and specially near airports – flying a drone in city / near airport could land you in Jail. If you are flying in public area you need NOC from local police.

You can fly a drone in rural areas / open areas.

What about Toy Drones?

There are many drones that are smaller in size and some are foldable – turns in to a box, thus makes it difficult to know if it is a drone (without the blades), now there is a possibly that such drones may pass though custom checks as they may look like a toy.

drones in India

So importing a drone is a bad idea and you should avoid, moreover flying a drone in city is also a bad idea.

Did you order a drone from international website? and did you get it, let us know.

By Rajeev Rana

Founder and Chief Editor - gogi.in