Drones to keep watch over waterbodies

Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will soon use drones to keep an eye on the waterbodies in the city and to prevent their filling up.

The waterbodies in the city will be divided into certain zones and drones will be used for keeping a track on them. All the zones will be surveyed once a month.

"The tender for procurement of drones will be floated soon and we hope to start surveillance in a month's time," said a senior official of the Public Management Unit (PMU) unit of the civic body. A meeting was held recently at the KMC in presence of Member Mayor-in-Council Swapan Sammadar who is in-charge of the PMU, Municipal Commissioner Khalil Ahmed and officials from Kolkata Police where the decision of using drones was taken.

It may be mentioned that the PMU department has already designated one separate nodal officer for each of the 16 boroughs to monitor the waterbodies and take steps to thwart attempts of filling. The nodal officer is assisted by the executive engineer and officials of the assessment department of the civic body. "We will be holding meetings once a week to monitor the condition of waterbodies and twice a month with the Kolkata Police to ensure that the FIRs initiated against illegal filling are taken up with priority," Samaddar said.