India will soon join a select nations globally to start on-road vertical take-off and landing air ambulance service across the country. A deal of more than $ 1 billion has been signed in this regard, according to which an IIT -MADRAS -based electric aircraft startup – EPLANE Company – 788 will supply air ambulances.
These 788 EVTOL or Electric Vertical Tech -off and Landing Air Ambulance ICATT – will be distributed to India’s leading air ambulance firm, which will then deploy these aircraft in every district of India.
Deal- A non-negotiable agreement- assumes importance as Indian cities and towns, which sometimes struggles with growing vehicle traffic. Evtols will begin by providing essential services such as medical emergency conditions. Being an electric vehicle, they will also ensure that the environment is not adversely affected.
India’s EVTOL market has attracted a lot of attention with the government in recent years, also to reduce the airspace to a limited extent to facilitate transportation and distribution services by Evtols and drones respectively.
Some of the major startups of EVTOL aircraft in India include Archer Aviation, Sarla Aviation and EPLANE Company. App-based taxi service firms like Uber are also developing and testing prototypes to introduce air taxi services, which will allow big city passengers to avoid traffic snarl.
For essential services such as air ambulances, the EPLANE company is aiming to start operations by the last quarter of 2026. The firm will have a production capacity of 100 units per year, its founder Satya Chakraborty said in an interview to the Reuters of the news agency.
Mr. Chakraborty is a professor in IIT -Madras – where his startup EPLANE company was incubated. While his Arab-dollar deal is signed for air ambulances, he is demanding $ 100 million for the manufacture and testing of other types of EVTOL aircraft and obtaining its necessary certifications. So far, the firm has raised $ 20 million from investors.
The EPLANE company is working on three separate prototypes of air ambulances depending on the requirement in various geographicals and population density. These aircraft will accommodate with a pilot, a paramedic, a patient and a stretcher as well as the required life saving medical equipment and medical kits. The air ambulance will have a range between 200 kmph speed and 110 kilometers and 200 kilometers per battery charge.
“We can ramp our production and put things in the market in the market to use more effectively with an air ambulance, which is more effectively than going directly into an air taxi,” Shri Chakraborty said, “It is possible for us to ramping the air ambulance more systematically, compared to going into a crowd with an air taxi. ,
(Input from Reuters)
