Visakhapatnam: The Indian Railways will be operating drone cameras for security purposes since the COVID-19 lockdown has left many of the railway sections with little or very less movement of railway security personnel.
According to Senior Divisional Commercial Manager G. Suneel Kumar of Waltair Division of East Coast Railway here, the drone cameras will be operated with the help of the permission of State, Naval and Airport authorities so that the movements are fully monitored. They will capture the images of the track from the maximum suitable heights, communication links of 2 km approximately initially so that the image and video reached up to the operator are clear to take follow up action.
Besides the real time monitoring, the data will be stored to create a video library for future references. At the same time with the use of motor or push trolley, the operator with RPF can move inside the section and cover the area, if required. In an emergency, message can be sent to the control room for immediate action and information can be passed to local police. The same project will be soon operational at Khurda Road, Bhubaneswar and Puri as per requirement, he said.
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The security of unattended railway property and vital installations was important and in the wake of the lockdown, it was also also necessary to ensure there was no unauthorised movement of the people through railway tracks. Since it was not practically possible to guard physically the huge assets and open railway tracks widespread all over, the concept of security patrolling through drones was introduced in Waltair Division of East Coast Railway, he stated.