Coronavirus COVID-19: Mumbai Police to use drones and AI technology to enforce social distancing

Amid the rising coronavirus COVID-19 cases in Mumbai, the police has decided to deploy drones and Artificial Intelligence technology to monitor the densely populated neighbourhoods of the city in order to ensure that the social distancing is strictly enforced to curb the spread of coronavirus pandemic. 

Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh was given a demonstration of the new technology at Worli in the presence of Mumbai's Joint Commissioner of Police Vinay Choubey.

Notably, India has only one police personnel per 761 people and in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat this further increases to 950 people.

After the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic, enforcing the lockdown and social distancing even while maintaining law and order has become a mammoth task for Mumbai Police.

"This will help maximise the police's reach in dense, difficult to reach pockets and become their eyes in the sky," said Deshmukh who added, "The technology will allow the police to address people and instruct them to disperse if there is crowding. It will also be able to contain the exposure of the police personnel if this is a contaminated area."

Deshmukh asserted that the coronavirus pandemic has forced authorities across the world to come up with new ideas to tackle the crisis. "The Maharashtra government is also doing its best to keep both citizens and police personnel safe. The deployment of drones is part of that endeavour," he noted.

Notably, the total number of coronavirus positive patients in Maharashtra has jumped to 2,334 and 160 people have died due to COVID-19 in the state so far.

According to Maharashtra government, a total of 352 new cases were recorded in the state in last 24 hours and 11 people have died during the same time period. The total number of coronavirus patients in Mumbai is 1,540 and 101 people have died in the city so far due to the deadly viral disease. In Maharashtra, 229 people have been cured of coronavirus so far.