Drone technology is finding its way into all areas of this modern world. We can see that drones are being used by all the governments in the world for different purposes. The Indian election commission decided to use drones for vigilance during the Lok Sabha elections in April 2019. It is an undeniable truth that we are already there – in the era where we are being monitored by machines.
Vigilance Drones for critical booths
The drones were deployed in several critical poll booths across the nation. This includes 471 polling booths that are identified as ‘critical’ by the election commission of India. The officials of the election commission have used the drone tech in areas that they studied and surveyed, and eventually decided to be more vulnerable to dangerous threats due to anti-social elements. These drones were coded to spot any behaviour that violated the model code of conduct and this helped the law and order division to break down several anti-social elements.
These vigilance drones continuously monitored the booths, constantly on the look out for any sort of threats that could be caused by anti-social elements. The use of drones for vigilance replacing manual force will improve the efficiency eliminating possible human errors or favourism exhibited by the appointed officials. Drones can also monitor large crowds from an aerial stance as compared to the already existing ground level vigilance operations.
This action by the election commission of India gives us a far better insight on how efficient and reliable drone technology is today. It proves that drones can be trusted to operate anywhere, including critical applications as these. The use of drones in government-based operations is increasing exponentially in every part of the world. Once safety and security is ensured in the use of these drones, they can be used to carry out confidential surveillance operations as well.
Image : The drones that were used in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019