Drones to guard city forests, ridges
19 Dec 2014 6:11 AM IST
Drones will soon fly over Delhi’s forests to monitor encroachments and breach of boundaries of protected forest areas.
The forest department has formulated a plan and it will soon be submitted to the Delhi government. “We will soon procure drones, which are battery-operated machines gliding silently through the air to have realistic data on the extent of forest land, encroachment or threat to boundaries of reserved or protected forests. With this we will move on to the second generation technology for monitoring and surveillance of wildlife,” said Sanjiv Kumar, secretary of Delhi’s forest department.
The department will hold discussions with the Wildlife Institute of India and Madhya Pradesh government which are also implementing the same.
The cost of a drone will be in the range of Rs 3,00,000 to Rs 6,00,000. A drone can be put on autopilot mode and sent as far as 40-50 km deep into the forest where it can record images and videos and transmit them on a real-time basis.
“Its movement can also be controlled through a GPS-based system called Ridge Protection Management System,” said Kumar. According to a forest department official, there is severe encroachments in forest areas of Delhi especially in the ridge area. “These encroachments come to light only by visual interpretation of satellite imageries”, he said.
The forest department has formulated a plan and it will soon be submitted to the Delhi government. “We will soon procure drones, which are battery-operated machines gliding silently through the air to have realistic data on the extent of forest land, encroachment or threat to boundaries of reserved or protected forests. With this we will move on to the second generation technology for monitoring and surveillance of wildlife,” said Sanjiv Kumar, secretary of Delhi’s forest department.
The department will hold discussions with the Wildlife Institute of India and Madhya Pradesh government which are also implementing the same.
The cost of a drone will be in the range of Rs 3,00,000 to Rs 6,00,000. A drone can be put on autopilot mode and sent as far as 40-50 km deep into the forest where it can record images and videos and transmit them on a real-time basis.
“Its movement can also be controlled through a GPS-based system called Ridge Protection Management System,” said Kumar. According to a forest department official, there is severe encroachments in forest areas of Delhi especially in the ridge area. “These encroachments come to light only by visual interpretation of satellite imageries”, he said.
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