With the procurement of 12 drones last month, the Karnataka police department has become one of the first police departments in the country to have its own Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) fleet, reported Times of India.
About 20 police personnel have been trained to operate them. In the long-run all the 12 drones that are currently operational, with the trained operators, will be deployed in Koppal, Yadgir, Ballari, Bidar, Raichur and Kalaburagi districts, Bhaskar Rao, additional DGP, crime and technical services told TOI.
The idea of procuring drones was partially funded by the regional commissioner, Kalaburagi with each UAV costing Rs 1.5 lakh.
What UAVs are capable of
Acquired from South Korea, the Phantom 4 UAVs can remain in the air for over 30 minutes. They can go up to heights of 1km and are equipped with 18.2 megapixel high definition cameras. The night vision capability technology allows you to see what the UAV sees 5km away. The only shortcoming being, these UAVs are incapable of operating in heavy rain.
Earlier, UAVs helped cops detect sand mining along the Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh border. In the past, Bengaluru police used UAVs for monitoring the crowd, while revenue authorities used them during clearing of illegal constructions.