The Indian Railways will deploy drone-mounted cameras to monitor activities like rescue operations, track inspection, traffic regulation and infrastructure projects it announced last week. A press statement by the Indian Railways states that the deployment will start with the West Central Railways (WCR) headquarters in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh which is the first division to procure drone-based cameras. The procurement follows a set of trial runs conducted by the West Central Railways. The trials have been run in three divisions: Jabalpur, Bhopal and Kota. A report on Inc42 quotes WCR CPRO Gunjan Gupta saying, "We have bought one drone from a Mumbai-based company at Rs 7,00,000, and trial at all the three places have been done by the same drone. We are also in a process of buying two more drones to meet the increasing requirements." But not every railway zone is up to speed on acquisition yet, the Inc42 report quotes, Ravinder Bhakar, CPRO, Western Railway, “It is a new technology and we are looking into it. We are in a process to finalise the tender by looking into the certifications and other details required for it. Hopefully, in a few months, we will be able to close it.” The Netra Drone Although Medianama was not able to independently verify this, the press statement by the Indian railway suggests that the drone in question will be the 'Netra'. The Netra is a lightweight, autonomous Unmanned Aereal Vehicle (military speak for drone) that is used for surveillance and reconnaissance, it has…
