akistan is inching towards a drone-powered future. However, its progress has been far from consistent and systematic. Despite global momentum around unmanned aerial systems, the country remains stuck in outdated regulation and bureaucratic rigidity.

The Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority’s Civil Unmanned Aircraft Rules, 2024, were a step forward, yet the implementation has been fractured. Operators still navigate vague classifications, overlapping approvals and inflated import duties on basic components.

The long-promised Civil Drone Authority, which could have centralised oversight, remains inactive. What’s left is an uncertain environment where innovation is incidental, not institutional.

The default approach to drones—particularly in the civilian domain—is reactive. Security agencies dominate airspace regulation, resulting in blanket bans near borders and urban centres. Lithium battery imports face tariffs as high as 30 percent, and drones above 10 kg require the approval of the Ministry of Defence, often with no defined turnaround.

Start-ups and research teams face months of regulatory back-and-forth for even routine operations. Meanwhile, the absence of data protection laws leaves users, especially farmers and small enterprises, sceptical about how drone-captured data might be misused or intercepted.

Other countries have shown what regulatory coherence can achieve. Rwanda’s partnership with Zipline enabled blood and vaccine deliveries to remote clinics, reducing maternal mortality rates.

Israel built a regulatory sandbox under its National Drone Initiative to allow 23,000 supervised test flights without waiting for perfect laws to be written. The European Union’s EASA framework has operationalised dynamic geo-fencing, cross-border licensing and risk-based classification.

The US Federal Aviation Administration, while conservative in certain aspects, has developed clear pilot certification standards and streamlined waivers for commercial operators. These jurisdictions do not ignore security—but they do not let it paralyse progress either.

In Pakistan, the upside is undeniable. Pilot projects in the Punjab suggest that precision spraying can increase agricultural yield by 20–30 percent, though large-scale replication still lacks robust evaluation. The potential annual gain to GDP from drone-enabled agriculture alone could reach $1.5 to $2 billion by 2030.

Post-flood assessments using drones in 2022 demonstrated how response times can be cut dramatically, though often-cited claims of a 70 percent reduction lack formal audits. Urban centres like Lahore are already using drones for traffic monitoring and enforcement. In Balochistan, pilot vaccine delivery projects reduced medical transit times from six hours to under one.

The export market for tactical drones is also beginning to open up. Systems like the Shahpar-II have been publicly showcased. With the right certifications, these could enter a $300-700 million niche export segment over the next five years.

On the jobs front, conservative estimates place the employment potential at over 100,000 new roles: spanning piloting, maintenance, data processing and assembly. Universities like the NUST and the COMSATS have engineering capacity, but lack integrated programmes focused on drone applications, particularly those tied to agriculture, logistics and public infrastructure.

The export market for tactical drones is also beginning to open up. Systems like the Shahpar-II have been publicly showcased. With the right certifications, these could enter a $300-700 million niche export segment over the next five years.

Domestic manufacturing is technically viable, but institutionally unsupported. Over fifty companies, including SATUMA, Agritronics and Sysverve Aerospace, are already in the field. PAC Kamra has co-developed systems like the ANKA UAV with Turkish partners, and China’s Wing Loong platform has been locally adapted.

However, nearly all these firms rely on imported flight controllers, optical sensors and energy systems, each subject to tariffs, customs delays or opaque security screenings. Special Technology Zones such as Islamabad Technopolis, were meant to close this gap but have failed to prioritise drone enterprises.

The National Aerospace Science and Technology Park remains underutilised, especially in providing manufacturing links or procurement pathways for local firms.

The core problem is policy fragmentation. The Civil Aviation Ordinance of 1960, Air Navigation Order of 2011 and the new PCAA rules now exist in parallel—each with different rules for the same aircraft. Import and operational approvals remain distributed across the PCAA, provincial governments and the Ministry of Defence, with little alignment.

Start-ups are forced to choose between flying under the radar or drowning in compliance. The rules make room for penalties but offer no incentives. Even public sector entities—like disaster management authorities or traffic control departments—have no formal pathways to procure drone services from local providers.

The path forward requires five decisive reforms. First, establish a fully functional Civil Drone Authority with a clear legal mandate and an integrated digital platform for registration, licensing and airspace permissions.

Second, introduce a regulatory sandbox model to allow safe experimentation by start-ups, research labs and universities under monitored conditions.

Third, offer fiscal incentives for local production—zero-rating drone components, tying R&D grants to commercial viability and embedding drone vendors into public procurement pipelines for agriculture, energy and logistics.

Fourth, invest in workforce capacity. Over two hundred training centres must be established, with rural targeting and practical certifications in piloting, telemetry and AI-based analytics.

Fifth, develop sector-specific regulations that reflect actual operating conditions—such as simplified rules for agriculture drones and performance-based standards for utility inspections.

These are not radical steps. They are basic governance upgrades aligned with global norms. But they require political clarity and institutional patience—both in short supply. The real opportunity is not in the hardware, but in the systems that enable and manage it. Drones can add billions to GDP, save lives, modernise public services and create jobs, but only if treated as infrastructure, not a threat.

Pakistan is not short on technical talent or industrial capacity. What it lacks is alignment—between ambition and policy; between security and innovation; and between regulation and use. Drones are not just flying tools; they are instruments of state capacity. How we choose to govern these will determine whether they remain grounded or learn to lead in the skies.

The writer is an associate research fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute. He can be reached at ahad@sdpi.org. The article doesn’t necessarily represent the views of the organisation.