What’s New in the Proposed Drone Bill 2025?

In September 2025, India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation unveiled a Draft Civil Drone Bill, 2025 and the drone industry’s reaction was immediate and visceral.

Rather than applause for a long-pending, dedicated drone law, the proposal triggered swift and significant reaction from startups, tech associations and even hobby clubs. Critics argued that the new bill marked a step backwards from the liberal approach that had pushed India’s drone boom since 2021.

 Why are Drones So important?

The drone sector matters because it can touch many areas, from food production to public safety to healthcare to national security. It’s why India is working on making a booming drone ecosystem and why China is building a low-altitude economy.

Before 2021, drones existed in a legal purgatory. The few operators who tried to navigate the system faced 25 forms, 72 fee types and a permission process so opaque that most gave up. The government saw drones as potential security threats, but not much else.

Then came the Drone Rules of 2021. The government had become more open to trying out how drones could be configured for the national economy. Now, drones can be used for many purposes and can be of various types, but the rules categorized them and introduced a tiered system based on one simple metric: weight.

Nano drones were exempt from registration entirely. This registration gives each drone a “unique registration number”. Hobbyists could also fly micro drones (250g-2kg) without a pilot license.

The impact was instant. While drone startups multiplied, the DGCA approved 116 training schools, minting over 16,000 certified pilots. The 120-crore PLI scheme attracted manufacturers, and an import ban on finished drones forced global players to assemble in India. In three years, India went from a drone desert to one of the largest drone markets in the world.

The Plot Twist of 2025

In contrast to the 2021 framework, the 2025 bill, while claiming to be more relaxed, is more restrictive. Industry stakeholders have highlighted several problems with it.

Universal Registration: Under the new bill, even a small toy drone must be registered before it can be sold. This shifts compliance upstream to manufacturers, who build registration into every product. The toy drone market, worth crores and a gateway for young engineers and students, might shrink as a result.

Mandatory Pilot Licensing for Everyone: A person flying a micro-drone would need a Remote Pilot Certificate, just as the self-help group working under the Namo Drone Didi scheme would. For potential entrepreneurs who plan to fly their own drones for testing, this is a letdown.

Type Certification Before Manufacturing: No drone can be manufactured, assembled, sold, or operated without DGCA certification. You can’t even build a prototype to test.

Criminal Penalties for Paperwork Errors: Flying an unregistered drone is a cognizable offence.  One can be arrested and have one's drone seized without a warrant. Under the 2021 rules, such violations were subject to administrative fines.

Universalinsurance: Every operator must have third-party insurance covering 2.5 lakh for death and 1 lakh for injury, on a no-fault basis. For a researcher or a rural SHG operating on a limited budget, this is a tall ask. It seems like the new bill puts a price on innovation, rather than regulating with balance.

Why This Matters Beyond Drones

The controversy reveals a deeper tension in India’s economic policy. Since 2014, the government has supported “ease of doing business” and “Make in India.” The 2021 drone rules were advancing both those goals. The 2025 bill, though, represents a reversal of that.

The US Federal Aviation Administration frees recreational flyers from licensing. The EU’s Open Category requires a simple online test for low-risk drones. China also lets hobbyists fly without pilot certificates. India’s draft bill would make it an outlier.

The economic stakes are huge. Agriculture alone seems to need thousands of drones for the Kharif season. The defence sector is building an indigenous drone arsenal worth thousands of crores. Logistics companies are betting on drones that could revolutionize e-commerce delivery. All this needs a pipeline of innovators students tinkering in labs, startups repeating in green zones, SHGs learning by doing.

In March 2021, the government notified the UAS Rules, 2021, a predecessor to the existing draft that was so restrictive it was dead on arrival. Industry pushed back so fiercely that within months, the government scrapped it and replaced it with the liberalized Drone Rules we have today.

The 2025 draft has faced near-universal criticism. NASSCOM has called for withdrawing the bill entirely. The consultation period, which was set at just two weeks, has been extended. Industry bodies are pushing for precise amendments: restoring R&D exemptions, decriminalizing minor violations, creating a classified penalty system and so on.

There is a possibility that the bill will either be heavily revised or, like its 2021 predecessor, quietly shelved. The Ministry of Civil Aviation comprehends that India’s drone dream cannot survive if the very people building it are treated as criminals.

This sets a precedent for how India controls emerging technologies, and we’ll be asking this question a lot more as AI and humanoids rise. The 2021 rules showed what happens when regulators trust citizens: innovation explodes and India becomes competitive. The 2025 bill shows what happens when fear trumps that trust.

This new bill straddles the old line between regulation and innovation. The question is whether we require regulation that pre-emptively protects us from a future that doesn’t exist or regulation that lets us build it.

Source: www.civilaviation.gov.in