BENGALURU: Medium and large scale industries Minister K J George on Thursday launched a pilot project for use of drones in three specific areas of agriculture, urban development and monitoring of traffic here on Thursday.For the agriculture part of the project, about six drones, with a maximum resolution of 24.3 megapixel, will cover about 200 sqkm in Haveri district to assess crop acreage, crop types, crop health and yield estimation. The operations will go on for three months during the crop life cycle in the current Kharif season.
Another project involves real-time crowd monitoring and surveillance and vehicular traffic surveillance and management at select places in Bengaluru and will be coordinated by the police department.
The third project for urban development will be taken up in Bantwal town of Dakshina Kannada district. A detailed map covering an area of 60 sqkm will be prepared to provide an input for preparation of master plan for town planning. Property tax estimation for the core town will also be carried out using the map and the project will be taken up in October this year.
The projects are the result of the Karnataka Knowledge Commission’s recommendation to the state government to undertake specific demonstrative applications to establish end-to-end practices for application of drones in governance.Launching the three pilot projects at an event here, George said, “The government of Karnataka will shortly announce a policy for use of drones in agriculture, urban development and police civic operations. The policy will also focus on design and manufacture of drones locally. The government has made a grant provision of `2.5 crore for implementation of the projects.”
The firm Omnipresent Robot Tech will carry out the drone operations for the projects.