Chennai Corporation using drones to fight mosquito menace

CHENNAI: The Greater Chennai Corporation on Friday started using three drones to spray larvicide to fight the mosquito menace. The corporation wants to end the mosquito menace in the city as part of Singara Chennai 2.0.
The civic body has taken three drones on rent. Each will be used in the five major canals and 31 minor canals of the city. The drones are 45 kg in weight and have two tanks. One is loaded with three litres of petrol and the other with 10 kg of larvicide.
The drone is operated by trained pilots sent by the Anna University, and they fly them for four hours every day. “The idea is to use one drone per region and cover three zones every day. This way, in 15 days, we will cover all the canals. The project began on July 1 and will continue till 15 of the month,” said Selvakumar, chief vector control officer of GCC.
He added that the civic body had collected samples of the water from these canals to study the density of the larvae before spraying the medicine. “Based on that, we have decided the quantity of larvicide that needs to be sprayed in these regions. Also, after 15 days, we will again collect water samples to check the density of larvae to understand if this spraying work helped control the spread of larvae,” he said.
The five major rivers and canals are the Cooum, Adyar, B Canal, Otteri Nallah and Virugambakkam and Arumbakkam canal.
Apart from this, the civic body has begun sending its domestic breeding checkers and sanitary workers to households to check and curb mosquito breeding spots.