Imagine a situation when there are machines flying all over your city, keeping an eye on every nook and corner, and watching out for any crime which may take place. Sounds like a good idea to me.
This is what you can expect in the coming few years, if you are a Delhite. The government has decided to take the path breaking step of using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), more popularly known as Drones to monitor the streets of Delhi, keeping in mind the high crime rate of the city. And this is going to the first time ever drones that drones will be used like that in civilian areas.
In the past few years the use of drones has increased extensively, mostly by UK and USA. Predator and Reaper drones were used by Americans in the Iraq and Afghanistan war. They were used to find the targets to make it more convenient for the army to attack.
The best part about these drones is that they can fly for long hours. Recently, a British drone named Zephyr flew for a continuous 82 hours, breaking all previous records made by drones. These long flying hours are very important when it comes to street surveillance. The drones used in India will have much lesser nonstop flying hours than this but it does give us hope that in future these hours can be increased to a great extent.
Though India has already been involved in the manufacturing of drones, a deal with USA is a necessity right now. The most popular Indian drone is Rustom. DRDO has been working on this project for many years now, they have created Rustom-I, Rustom-H and Rustom-II, but none of these is likely to be a part of the Delhi project because of certain drawbacks which they have. Low endurance hours and bigger size being the major ones.
Barack Obama’s visit to India is being looked upon as an opportunity to seal the deal between India and USA, regarding the trade and production of drones. US Secretary of Defence, Frank Kendall, will be on his fourth visit to our country, late in the month of February to finalize the details of the project.
It is a big step for our country, not only in terms of defence but internal security as well. Talks are going on to shift the production base of the aircraft, Raven, to Bengaluru. This UAV will be having a range of almost 18 km and endurance time of 6 hours. A high ranked government officer said, “Not only will the Indian company supply the remaining orders but jointly develop a 18-km extended range UAV with flying endurance increased from four to six hours.”
After almost 1600 cases of rapes being recorded last year in our capital, we can now expect the number to go down with this new technology comes into place. Delhi will be getting a thick slice of the $3 billion worth orders which has already been placed by 7 other countries. It is not just rapes, other crimes like theft, robbery and murder can also be severely tackled if they get caught on camera. Police can reach the crime scene without taking much time if they start getting instantly informed about the incident with the help of drones.
The use of CCTV cameras on the streets is not up to mark currently and hence it makes it all the more important bring these drones into the scene as soon as possible. They will be hovering around 300 feet above the ground to monitor every public place of the city, from Chandni Chowk to Connaught Place.
It is still very early to say how much efficient they are going to be and will they be able to curb down the crime rate or not but definitely this is an experiment worth trying. Drones for street surveillance is all set to glide above Delhi and if it turns out to be effective, it won’t be wrong to predict that other cities of not only India but other countries as well, will make it a part of their monitoring team.
