Karnataka launched a pilot project using drones for providing better governance, primarily in agriculture, urban development and police civic operations.
"The Government of Karnataka is keen to promote the use of drone technology and will shortly announce a policy for its use in agriculture, urban development and police civic operations. The policy will not only focus on use of drones but also on design and manufacture of drones locally. The Government of Karnataka has made a grant provision of Rs. 2.50 crores for implementation of these pilot projects. The Karnataka Science and Technology Promotion Society (KSTePS), a subsidiary organization of the Department of Science and Technology will implement these innovative Drone based pilot projects in close coordination with line Departments,” said the state's Information Technology and Biotechnology Minister KJ George on the occasion.
The state has provided a grant of Rs 2.5 crore for implementation of the pilot project.
In his address, Gaurav Gupta, Principal Secretary, IT/BT&ST said, “The key objective of this initiative is to enable the adoption of technology for better governance and effective administration. The Government of Karnataka is actively pushing for the use of unmanned aerial systems in governance and the results of these three projects would be compiled to develop operational guidelines for use by all government departments. This will help in adoption of new and innovative technologies for enhanced governance as well as for monitoring and management of our natural resources, environment and disaster mitigations.”
A pilot drone project in agriculture will be taken up in Haveri district's Kosaba-Hobli village over a 200 square kilometre area to assess the crop health, yield estimation and crop types suitable.
Drone operations over the crop are to be carried out for three months in the ongoing Kharif season.
For testing the use of drones in urban development, a project will be taken up in Bantwal town in Dakshina Kannada district in October to prepare a detailed map for systematic and scientific town planning. "Property tax estimation will also be carried in the town through the use of drones," an official statement said.
The drone project for police civic operations would be carried out in Bengaluru for three months through real-time crowd monitoring and surveillance, as well as vehicular traffic surveillance in the city.
In recent times, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) or Drones are emerging as a next-generation technology with wide utility. Currently, drones are being used worldwide for various applications such as resource management, urban development, environmental protection, disaster management, agriculture and infrastructure monitoring.
Source:https://news.webindia123.com
