Noida Authority starts using drones for scanning people, disinfecting slums

In order to prevent the possibility of community transmission in some of the slum clusters in the city, the Noida Authority, on Saturday, started using a multi-purpose

In order to prevent the possibility of community transmission in some of the slum clusters in the city, the Noida Authority, on Saturday, started using a multi-purpose corona combat drone (CCD) for scanning people venturing out their houses and to disinfect the slum areas.

HT Image

So far, the health department of the Noida Authority has disinfected slums located along the Shahdara drain that originates from Delhi’s Chilla and ends in Sector 94 merging into the Yamuna river. Thousands of people live in these slums located in sectors 16, 17, 14, 15 and near the DLF Mall of India. The drone has the facility to carry a thermal camera, a night vision camera, a disinfectant tank, a loudspeaker and spotlight, said officials of the Noida Authority.

“This CCD will help in scanning of people, who have higher temperature than normal and also disinfect the areas, which are densely populated. If it works properly, then we will use this facility in other slum clusters and densely populated areas of the city,” said Ritu Maheshwari, CEO, Noida Authority.

The Noida Authority has a staff of around 5,000 workers and around 300 senior officials, who are engaged in sanitation and food distribution to homeless people across the city spread over an area of 20,000 hectares of land adjoining Delhi.

They are finding it very tough to disinfect slum clusters, which are located along city’s polluted drains, vacant plots and in flood plains of the Hindon river, among other areas.

The authority officials fear that if Covid-19 disease spreads in slum areas, then the risk of community spread will increase manifold. The authority decided to disinfect slum clusters after a positive case surfaced in Sector 5 slum area, where at least 200 suspected cases have been kept in quarantine in a university in Greater Noida.

According to the health department, 64 positive cases of Covid-19 have been found in Gautam Buddha Nagar, out of which 12 have been discharged, while the remaining are under treatment.

Apart from this, the authority teams are disinfecting sealed hotspots and other areas in order to contain the spread of the virus causing Covid-19.