The Agartala smart city has designed and handed over a mobile COVID-19 sample collection kiosk to the city’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO).
As per a press release, the kiosk protects the sample collecting doctor and prevents the wastage of personal protection equipment (PPE). This initiative is a major step by Agartala in the fight against COVI-19.
Mounting the kiosk on a three-wheeler vehicle enables it to navigate through narrow lanes and enables the community to collect virus samples itself. There is no need for patients to go to a hospital to give a sample.
The kiosk also facilitates the mass testing of a large number of people in a short timeframe. This initiative was taken by the Municipal Commissioner, Agartala Municipal Corporation.
Last year, the Agartala smart city installed 464 CCTV cameras across the region to monitor the movement of people and the activities happening across the city.
The city administration also installed 81 cameras to track vehicles that violate traffic rules on city roads. Altogether, 43 machines were installed for the identification of vehicles’ number plates, an official had said.
The department is also installing 22 integrated traffic system and smart pool sensors in six places to measure environmental pollution.
Another smart city, the Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC), recently announced that a dashboard with updates of the COVID-19 pandemic in the KDMC area is now available in the public domain.
The page has been linked with the website of the municipal corporation, and other social media handles of city government and is open for viewing by the public, a press release noted. The dashboard can be accessed on this website.
A key feature of the dashboard is that using the drop menu, citizens can get to know the status of COVID-19 situation in any of the electoral ward and related graphs. Citizens can also find out the status by clicking on the respective wards on a spatial map of the city. The dashboard also provides multiple options to view the maps by changing the background base map from the options such as satellite view and road map.
OpenGov reported earlier that the Varanasi smart city is spraying sanitiser around COVID-19-sensitive parts of the city under the Smart Cities Mission (SCM).
Given the limited options for transportation during the lockdown period, these drones were specially airlifted from Chennai through cargo flights with permission from the Ministry of Civil Aviation. A seven-member team with two drones was made operational and trial runs were completed on 17 April.
According to a press release, spraying sanitiser through drones is prioritised for hot spots and containment areas identified by the district administration or the Chief Medical Officer. This is followed by isolation areas, quarantined areas, shelter homes, and other places where manual spraying is difficult.
The drone team first visits the area planned to be sanitised for the day and makes a quick visual survey of the terrain, buildings, and surroundings then chalk out a flight path to be followed by the drone.
The drone is then filled with a chemical solution consisting of 1% sodium hypochlorite. The drone is then calibrated and set ready to fly. The drones are flown using a remote-control device by experienced drone pilots in the planned flight path.
