1,000 drones to form part of Beating Retreat ceremony

New Delhi: Around 1,000 indigenously built drones will form a part of the light show at the Beating Retreat ceremony here on Saturday evening.

This will make India the fourth country, after China, Russia and UK, to carry out such a large-scale show with these unmanned aerial vehicles, Union Minister of State Science and Technology Jitendra Singh said on Friday.

“Indian StartUp “Botlab”, funded by Technology Development Board (TDB) under Union Ministry of Science & Technology and led by IIT Delhi alumni, will fly 1,000 Drones in “Beating Retreat” ceremony tomorrow evening, as a part of the Light Show marking the conclusion of nearly week long programmes related to Republic Day,” Jitendra Singh said, adding that this will make India the fourth country, after China, Russia and UK, to carry out such a large-scale show with 1,000 drones.

At a demonstration of the Drone presentation today, the Minister interacted with the “Botlab” StartUp team members at his residence including Tanmay Bunkar, Sarita Ahlawat, Sujit Rana, Mohit Sharma, Harshit Batra, Kunal Meena and others.

Singh said that the Start-Up, Boatlab Dynamics was given an initial seed fund of Rs One crore rupees for R&D by Department of Science & Technology (DST) and subsequently Rs Rs 2.5 crore for scale up and commercialisation by Technology Development Board to develop first of its kind technological project in India.

“The success of this project is a perfect example of inter-Ministerial coordination wherein everyone from senior officials to the last executing official of MoD, DST TDB and IIT Delhi all worked together to make this programme a success and supporting the company in demonstrating the accomplishment of Atmanirbhar Bharat Mission,” he added.

Rajesh Kumar Pathak, IP&TAFS, Secretary, TDB stated that, “Due to paucity of time, the project came as a challenge to TDB but considering the innovation involved and contribution it would make to nation building. TDB took this up and we are glad that we could provide the assistance on time. Also, I would also like to thank Prof Ashutosh Sharma (Former Chairperson, TDB & Former Secretary, DST) for his timely support for the project and my predecessor Dr.Neeraj Sharma (Former Secretary, TDB) for understanding the project’s national importance.” – IANS