East Coast Railways readying for drone test

BHUBANESWAR: WITH the Indian Railways deciding to deploy drone cameras to monitor its activities, the East Coast Railway (ECoR) is preparing an action plan for use of such unmanned devices in its jurisdiction. Sources in ECoR said, the action plan is expected to be ready in a week. The guidelines of the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and local authorities are also being analysed regarding deployment of the drones. “We have received the instruction from Railway Board in this regard.

We are planning to use drone for survey at critical locations including construction sites of major projects,” a senior official said. Apart from monitoring progress of projects, the ECoR will also employ drones to get a clear view of obstructions and hindrances at the sites. Illegal encroachments of railway land would also be monitored through the UAVs or NETRA. A major advantage of deploying drones would be to use them at highly congested locations for crowd management, especially during festivals such as Puri Rath Yatra and Godavari Pushkar mela in Visakhapatnam.

This would be important for security point of view, the sources added. The Indian Railways has planned to use the drone cameras in sync with its decision to use technology for enhancement of safety and efficiency in train operations. The ECoR also plans to use the eyes in the sky for land mapping and survey work. “In the past, we have had to change the plans due to existence of forest land and sanctuary areas after land acquisition and diversions caused wasteful expenditure. This can help us,” said the sources.

Besides, the drone cameras would also be used during disaster management, to identify scrap and aerial survey of station yards. The Indian Railways said it is going to be instrumental in providing real time inputs related to safety and maintenance of tracks and other railway infrastructure. Already, West Central Railways has become the first zone to procure drone cameras while West Central Railways did a trial- run last week.