DEHRADUN: Drone monitoring of traffic-related problems and subsequent challans started in Dehradun in November last year for the first time in the state and is now expected to extend to other cities.
Senior officials of the department said that police in districts like Haridwar and Nainital are already carrying out monitoring with the help of drones, but the process is currently limited to only the capital. Currently, there is one drone centre in Dehradun which operates in a radius of 7 km in the city mostly to monitor vehicles parked illegally or in no-parking zones. The traffic department has engaged a third party to operate the system. This year, so far 684 vehicles have been challaned using the drone .
“As soon as the high definition camera on the drone captures the number of an illegally parked vehicle, the control room uses it to trace the owner. If the vehicle is removed within a couple of minutes, the owner is not penalised. The idea is to solve the problem of wrongful parking,” said the superintendent of police, traffic, Akshay Konde.
The department has asked the state government for a budget to buy more drones and to develop at least two more centres which can then be used for monitoring outside the main city as well. Requests for drone deployments have been made by other districts as well.
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