Gujarat’s Junagadh has come up with a novel idea of using technology for the eradication of diseases among citizens.
One of the biggest aftereffects of monsoon is water-filling in potholes. These potholes are breeding grounds for mosquitoes causing diseases like malaria, chikungunya etc.
The Junagadh administration will be using drone cameras to identify these water-filled potholes in different areas.
They will further employ software to map out the region.
A drone survey of 130 sq km will be done to find the water-logging sites.
It is to be noted that the total area of Junagadh city is 56 sq km as against 130 sq km of coverage considered. The spots seen with water-logging would be automatically updated in the software by the usage of AI/ML (Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning).
The administration has also developed a mobile application that is installed on the mobile phones of all field workers. The spots found through AI/ML would be subsequently passed automatically to the on-ground field-level workers through a mobile app, following which, workers will approach those areas.
For places that are unreachable or inaccessible by field workers, spraying of medicines would be done through drones.
The tender for this project also has 400 hours of drone-induced spraying covered.
Junagadh Municipal Commissioner Om Prakash said, “This project will not only help discover newer areas affected by water-logging but also help eradicate disease-causing mosquitoes from those areas.”
“There was an inaugural meeting today in the presence of Junagadh MP Rajesh Chudasama, Junagadh MLA and others. The survey has already started today and will be completed in 8-10 days. Post-survey, treatment will be done. If there is rainfall again, we will do the survey once more.”
The administration had already planned in the tender to do two rounds of survey and treatment for a 110 sq km area.
They have kept another 20 sq km as an area to be covered later if needed.
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