Drones meant to save people from suicide get a new task: catch people defecating in open
: Police in Telangana’s Karimnagar district have come up with a novel idea to prevent open defecation along the banks of a local reservoir – by spying on people using a drone and catching them in the act.
Officers said the plan, implemented on Monday, has yielded “excellent results”. “The number of people indulging in open defecation came down drastically by Wednesday,” Karimnagar commissioner of police VB Kamalasan Reddy told HT.
The reservoir of Lower Manair Dam (LMD), located on the outskirts of Karimnagar town on Hyderabad road, serves as a drinking water source for the town. It is guarded by a team of police of the LMD police station.
Significantly, the district police had first deployed the drones to keep an eye on people jumping into the lake reportedly to commit suicide — and alert the local police to save them from drowning.
“In recent times, we began receiving a lot of complaints from local walkers’ association that people from nearby slums and weaker sections’ colonies go to the banks for defecation purpose early in the morning. It then struck us to use the drones to identify such people,” Reddy said.
Incidentally, nearly every house in these colonies has its own toilet. “Yet, people defecate in the open out of habit. So, we thought we could shame them by exposing them through the drone,” the commissioner said.
When the drones were first put into operation on Monday, Reddy said, people thought it was just a toy hovering over their heads. “Later, some officers and association members went around thee colonies showing people the visuals captured by the cameras and counselled them against spoiling the water in the reservoir that supplies drinking water to them. They understood and agreed to cooperate with us. In the next two days, the results were excellent.”
Association member Kudali Srinivas said open defecation had become a big menace for the walkers. “Besides women, a number of students from nearly colleges would come here to jog or study. (Sight of) people openly defecating was very embarrassing. The drone idea did the trick,” he said.
What’s next? “We are now focussing on pig rearers who bring their animals here and make the water dirty,” the police commissioner said.
HYDERABAD