JOIN USWestern Railway uses drones to keep vectors, pests away
Keeping pace with modern technology, the Western Railway has added another feather to its cap by adopting drone technology at Lower Parel Workshop for keeping a tab on susceptible areas infested with various vectors and disinfecting such areas, which are beyond the reach of human eyes and hands.
This has helped keep diseases at bay and has ensured a safe and healthy working environment for the staff engaged in the daily maintenance work of coaches at the Lower Parel Workshop, built in 1876.
WR general manager Alok Kansal congratulated Tarun Huria, the chief workshop manager of Lower Parel and his team of co-ordinators consisting deputy chief mechanical engineers DN Gangwar and Arun Kumar Singh, as well as other employees and workers, for this commendable work.
According to Sumit Thakur, the WR chief public relations officer, the Lower Parel Workshop is geographically situated in one of the low lying areas of Mumbai and always faces the problem of waterlogging during monsoon season. Hence, a systematic approach every year to maintain cleanliness and hygienic conditions inside the workshop premises, which includes priority work such as cleaning of the rooftop, valley gutters, down take pipes, drainage line and the complete yard, is important.
Also, to avoid the accumulation of water, heavy-duty pumps are installed to remove water from pit lines and the materials kept out of the shed are covered with waterproof tarpaulin sheets.
With the onset of the monsoons, another most important factor which needs attention is to prevent transmission of vector-borne diseases by effectively controlling the mosquito vectors or interrupting the human–vector contact, especially in the wake of the current Covid-19 pandemic.
Normally, all shops and sections are disinfected by spraying liquid pesticides and fogging using a hand-operated sprayer. However, it has certain limitations as it does not cover elevated areas such as roof top, etc. In order to overcome this difficulty, in a first-of-its-kind effort, the Carriage Repair Workshop teamed up with BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to carry out large-scale drone disinfection of inaccessible mosquito-breeding spots in the workshop premises, since the last week of June, to eliminate vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue and chikungunya.
Speaking about this technology, Huria said that this Aerial Microbial Disinfection is being used for the first time in the railway workshop for the disinfection of mosquito breeding and other vector-borne diseases spreading areas that are usually inaccessible. "Two drones are used for this purpose. The strategy involves employing one drone to carefully survey the inaccessible breeding spots and the other drone to spray the disinfectant," he said.
The drones carry out disinfection of the entire workshop premises by flying to the inaccessible places as high as 500 mt, spraying over 15 litres of disinfectant for nearly 12 hours every day. The disinfectants being employed are also effective against 65 strains of viruses, 400 strains of bacteria, and over 100 strains of fungi.
The effort has brought in much-needed relief in the control of mosquito larvae and adult population for the workshop staff and those residing in the vicinity.