The nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19 pandemic has kept the police departments, law enforcement agencies and first-line responders on their toes across India, with the height of their success in implementing the stringent lockdown being determined as much by the technologies they’re utilising as much by the coordination of security manpower that is in place.

A vast line-up of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or Drones – from Delhi to Telangana, and from Chennai to Varanasi is being utilised by the police and local administration bodies to disinfect the suspected areas with least human intervention possible alongside the surveillance of the enforcement of lockdown measures.

According to a Times of India report, a range of drones named as ‘Corona-Killer 100’ have been operationalised by Chennai-based UAV startup ‘Garuda Aerospace’ to spray disinfectants in 26 cities across India, at the insistence of respective state governments and local municipal bodies.

The startup has 300 Corona-killer-100 drones operational at present.

"Drone startups have come out and extended their support to the government on a no-cost basis. Most of the drone service providers are not charging for the services they are providing," Smit Shah, Director - Partnerships, Drone Federation of India (DFI) told the news agency PTI.

The drones are in use for a vast range of tasks such as spraying disinfectants, sanitization, surveillance to ensure the social distancing measures in-place, and subsequently the announcements of awareness messages through them in country’s densely populated areas.

According to a News18 report, at the beginning of the lockdown period, the drones were used by Srinagar’s local administration to announce restrictions on movement of people in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk. Delhi Police is also using drones to monitor people's movements in Ghazipur Mandi, which witnesses a steady stream of traders throughout the day.

"Right now, the need of the hour is that the Ministry of Home or state police departments should take a call on whether they need drones with megaphones as a reinforcement tool, otherwise their containment strategies won't work. This is the time to go for mass procurement and leverage the entire drone production capability of the country. It will take us two-three weeks to start delivering," Ankit Mehta, co-chair of a FICCI committee on drones, was quoted as saying by the news agency PTI.

The UAV technology, wherever is in use, is enabling the local administrations to make lockdown-related announcements and galvanize the ground forces in real-time wherever lockdown measures are reported to be violated through the drone-surveillance.

The better monitoring of evolving situations continues to ensure an even-better utilization of such tech-surveillance during the lock down.

India has remained under lockdown since March 25 to contain the spread of COVID-19, which has infected 10,815 people till now and has resulted in 353 deaths. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the lockdown, which was originally for 21 days, will be extended by 19 days to May 3.