Andhra Pradesh Police will be soon deploying an unmanned aerial vehicle in its operations against the Maoists, especially in the thick forest areas of northern districts bordering Orissa and Chhattisgarh.
Director General of Police V Dinesh Reddy told a yearend press conference in Hyderabad that another option being mulled was the use of a pilotless chopper as will be less time consuming.
The UAV will be deployed at Madurapudi airport near Rajahmundry and will be remote operated by a land-based control room.
The state-of-the-art UAV will have the capability to take photographs of anything under the thick foliage as well as record the sound signals and transmit the same to the control room almost live through satellite. "The speed of transmission (transmitting photos) will be 1,86,000 miles per second, same as the speed of light", the DGP said.
On getting the data from the UAV, the control room will be able to convey the operational units through the land communication and other networks of what was happening and its exact location.
The UAV will be able to carry four types of payloads to carry out its duties of surveillance through satellite imagery and thermal imagery.
Similarly, another proposal of use of a pilotless chopper was also under consideration but it was not available in the country and needed to be imported.
The DGP revealed that the central government had also agreed to provide MI 17 helicopters to the state police to airdrop the Greyhound commandos for quick operations.
The helicopter will be operating out of Visakhapatanam.
The use of the UAV and the MI 17 helicopter was significant in the backdrop of increasing activities of Maoists in the forest and tribal areas of Visakhapatanam, Srikakulam and Khammam district.
The DGP said that 2011 witnessed the lowest incidents of Left-wing extremism in the state. "There was 51 per cent decline in the left wing extremist activities. While four extremists were killed in four incidents of exchange of fire and 38 weapons were seized, not a single policeman was killed in the violence," he said.
