ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has decided to set up a regulatory authority to oversee the ‘peaceful’ use of drone technology, the federal minister for science and technology announced on Tuesday.
Around the world, from Africa to South Asia, governments are experimenting with civilian drones that can help farmers protect their crops from the effects of climate change and ward off hungry birds and locust swarms.
“Another landmark achieved,” Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said, retweeting a post by state television.
Another landmark acheived https://t.co/0TJ2nZ0TXB
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) December 22, 2020
“The federal government has decided to set up a drone regulatory authority for the use of drones,” PTV said. “High level briefing of Federal Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain to Prime Minister Imran Khan regarding formulation of drone policy.”
“Prime Minister Imran Khan was given a detailed briefing on the use of drone technology in various fields for peaceful and research purposes,” the post said. “The Prime Minister said that drone technology is very useful for agriculture, urban planning, security and law and order.”
In July this year, Minister Hussain said Pakistan had developed agricultural drones that would be used to fight locust swarms that arrived in Pakistan last year and were devastating crops.
Pakistani media reports quoted the National Radio Telecommunication Corporation, a state-run telecommunication manufacturing company, as saying it had developed the drone which was now available for sale.
“Pakistan’s drone technology is among the world’s most modern,” Hussain said in a Twitter post while retweeting a video demonstration of the drone. “The development of agricultural drones will be an important milestone.”
Massive swarms of the destructive desert locust entered Pakistan for the first time after 1993 in June last year, with the crop-eating grasshopper expanding its territory to 61 districts in all four provinces of the country, Pakistan’s food security ministry has said. The invasion of the insects was declared a national emergency.
Earlier this year, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs donated 12 agricultural drones to Pakistan to battle locusts and improve food security.