Assam flood fury: IIT Guwahati uses drones to provide relief materials

The relief operation is being carried out by the “Drones Tech Lab”, a start-up at IIT Guwahati, and students of the aeromodelling club of the institute with the help of the Kamrup district administration.

Assam floods fury: IIT Guwahati uses drones to provide relief materials

As Assam battles with the devastating floods, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati has come forward to helo all those who are trapped in the floodwaters in lower Assam. IIT Guwahati is using drones to provide relief material to thousands of villagers in lower Assam who are left without food and shelter. 

The relief operation is being carried out by the “Drones Tech Lab”, a start-up at IIT Guwahati, and students of the aeromodelling club of the institute with the help of the Kamrup district administration. They are delivering medicines and relief materials in Kamrup through drones as numerous villages in lower Assam, where IIT-G is located, have been cut off from the rest of the state for over a week now.

“This challenging job of surveying the flood-affected areas was conducted using four multirotor drones,” said Parameswar Krishnan Iyer, dean, public relations, at IIT-G.

IIT Guwahati was also requested to deliver emergency ration, children’s food, sanitary and hygiene products at locations in and around Hajo town. The team carried out the delivery of emergency medicines such as anti-diarrhoeal tablets, paracetamol, ORS, zinc ointment miconazole, silverex, cough syrup, vitamins and other supplies in specially designed red colour medical kits, which can easily be identified when dropped.

Over the last one week, IIT-G conducted surveys and mapping of flood-affected areas surrounding Balisatra Chariali, near Kendukona village, one of the worst flood-hit locations. IIT-G said "their drone technology will help in identifying stranded citizens during floods or other natural disasters such as earthquakes and landslides in a very short time and provide real time information to disaster response authorities."
IIT-G director, TG Sitharam, said, “We obtained first-hand information of some of the flood-hit areas by directly visiting them and realized that unless modern technologies like drones are deployed, the magnitude of the damage cannot be assessed.”

Read More:

• IIT Kanpur inks MoU with District Mineral Foundation Trust to form water and land restoration plan
• Student Unions demand JEE main 2022 extra attempt amid agnipath protest, assam floods
• West Bengal Assembly passes bill to make Mamata Banerjee Chancellor of Aliah University