Drones on traffic duty in Goa from next month

PANAJI: Drones will keep a close watch on traffic from next month to avoid accidents and congestion.
Goa police has purchased three drones at a cost of around Rs 60 lakh for traffic management. Deployment of drones will also help police reduce the number of personnel on traffic duty and to use its resources optimally.
“Drones will join Goa police in March for traffic management and to reduce fatalities,” North Goa superintendent of police (SP) Nidhin Valsan told TOI.
Once drones start monitoring the traffic, deployment of police personnel on the road will reduce, he said.
For example if there is a road stretch of 2 km and there are around 10 junctions on the stretch, then 10 police personnel have to be deployed for smooth flow of traffic and there is no proper coordination. But once the drone is deployed on the stretch, they can watch how many stretches have traffic congestion and accordingly personnel will be deployed.
In case only two junctions have congestion, then only two personnel can be deployed on traffic duty and the remaining eight can be deployed on other duties, a senior police officer said.
The state government will also conduct a road audit in view of the rise in road accidents in the state.
A senior police officer said that they will fetch footage from CCTV cameras installed at different locations across the city for penalising violators of M V rules.