Drone To Keep Aerial Surveillance During Hockey World Cup

Bhubaneswar: Ahead of the Men’s Hockey World Cup scheduled to kick off at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar from October 28, the Commissionerate Police has taken all possible measures to ensure foolproof security for the players.

As part of the security arrangements, the Commissionerate Police has decided to engage a drone for aerial surveillance in and around the stadium during the mega event.

“At present, we are monitoring the movement in and outside the stadium and collecting information through CCTV cameras. But by using the drone, we will be able to get a wider view of the stadium, vehicle stands, crowd control and traffic movement alongside the stadium. We have decided to engage a drone with a high-resolution camera for this purpose,” Police Commissioner Satyajit Mohanty told mediapersons here on Monday.

He also said that there will be restrictions against the use of private drones during the event. “As decided, the Commissionerate Police will announce the areas which are prohibited zones and over which no private drones would be allowed to fly. “Except the drone used by the Commissionerate Police, the event organisers and the broadcasting agencies, no other drones would be allowed to fly inside the prohibited zone,” he maintained.

Talking about the security of the players, the Police Commissioner said that tight security is in place at the hotels where the players are staying. Besides, there is a special team of police to escort the players during their departure from the hotels to the stadium and vice-versa.

“Apart from this, we will have some access control in the stadium for which we have written to the Sports and Youth Affairs Department to give us the permission to know the details of any employee of its department or any new worker engaged by the department inside the stadium,” he added.

To restrict the flying of the private drones, a German-based expert team had a meeting with the Director General of Police (DGP) R P Sharma on September 11 on the use of a state-of-the-art drone detection system.