Drones are being used in UP's Varanasi, a city with a population of 1.4 million, for spraying disinfectant in COVID-19 hotspots and containment areas, isolation areas, quarantine areas, and shelter homes, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs said in a statement. The flight path of these drones is also being recorded. Varanasi is the Lok Sabha constituency that Prime Minister Narendra Modi represents. Garuda Aerospace, a Chennai-based private company has provided the drones, which were airlifted from Chennai with “special permission” from the Ministry of Civil Aviation. With this, Varanasi joins Delhi, Telangana, Kerala, Gujarat, and Maharashtra, among others, where drones are being used to either surveil lockdown violators, or spray disinfectants. A seven-member team, with two drones has been operationalised for this purpose. Trial runs were completed on April 17. Drones are flown using a remote-control device by drone pilots, and every flight lasts anywhere between 15 to 20 minutes, after which the disinfectant is refilled and batteries are replaced. Apart from spraying disinfectants, the flight path of the drone, and the subsequent area covered is also recorded on a “hand held device with GIS maps on the backend which is plugged to the remote controller”. It is unclear what happens to these recordings, and how they are saved and shared. The Ministry said that vehicles used for drone operations are fitted with GPS and GSM based wireless cameras using which the entire movement of drones and their operations are centrally monitored from the Kashi Integrated Command and…
