Giant Leap! Indian Railways introduces drone-based surveillance for better security

The Indian Railways has taken a giant leap to modernise its services. The national transporter on Thursday announced drone-based surveillance for better security  in Indian Railways including station premises, yards, railway track sections, workshops, etc. This comes after the Mumbai Division of Central Railway zone recently procured two Ninja UAVs.  

A team of four staff of Railway Protection Force (RPF), Mumbai has been trained for drone flying, surveillance and maintenance. These drones are capable of real-time Tracking, Video Streaming and may be operated on Automatic Fail Safe Mode. 

So far the Indian Railways has procured nine drones at a cost of Rs 31.87 Lakhs at South Eastern Railway, Central Railway, Modern Coaching Factory, Raebareli and South Western Railway. It is further proposed to procure 17 more drones in future at a cost of Rs 97.52 Lakhs.  

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Railway Protection Force (RPF) has planned extensive use of drones for the purpose of Railway security. It has trained nineteen personnel in operation and maintenance of drones out of which four have received licenses for flying drones. Six more RPF personnel are being trained. 

These drones will help in inspection of Railway assets and safety of Yards, Workshops, car sheds etc. They can be used to launch surveillance on criminal and anti-social activities like gambling, throwing of garbage, hawking etc in Railway premises. 

The drone may be pressed in service at disaster sites for helping in rescue, recovery and restoration and coordinating of efforts of various agencies. During large scale crowd management efforts, it may give vital inputs like crowd magnitude, probable time of arrival and dispersal based on which crowd regulation efforts may be planned and executed.