The Telangana Police will use Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based system through CCTVs to identify people who do not wear face masks in public.
Terming it as a first-of-its-kind initiative in India, the Director-General of Police for Telangana, M Mahender Reddy said the rollout will begin soon in Hyderabad, Cyberabad, and Rachakonda police commissionerates that cover Hyderabad and its suburbs.
The police chief said the initiative involved leveraging computer vision and deep learning techniques on Closed-Circuit Television (CCTVs).
A team from L&T Smart World and Communications along with police are using crowd analytics tools operating from the Command and Control Centre (CCC) at the Cyberabad Police Commissionerate, reported the Times of India (ToI).
A total of 335 cameras across the three commissionerates of Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda have been assigned for this purpose. The feed from these cameras will be analysed real-time and alerts will be triggered when people without masks are spotted. The team at CCC will inform the local police about the violators, ToI reported.
In a move aimed at containing the spread of coronavirus, the Telangana government last month made wearing of face masks compulsory for people when they step out of their homes.
#AI based #FaceMaskViolationEnforcement is being rolled out by TS police.
— DGP TELANGANA POLICE (@TelanganaDGP) May 8, 2020
Leveraging ComputerVision & #DeepLearningTechnique being implemented on surveillance CCTVs across the cities is #FirstOfItsKind in INDIA.
Shall be enabled shortly across the 3Commissionerates
*Hyd,Cyb&Rck. pic.twitter.com/hGwvq9cvsE
The police in the districts are imposing fines ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 on violators.
A wine shop owner in Ranjanna-Sircilla district was fined Rs 5000 for selling liquor to customers without a face mask on Friday, reported The New Indian Express. A fine of Rs 1000 was also levied on a customer at the wine shop for not wearing a mask during an inspection by the Municipal Commissioner, V Sammaiah.
The official order for making the wearing of masks mandatory and levying a fine of Rs 1000 was released only on Friday as part of the government order (GO) extending lockdown till May 29.
According to data from the Bureau of Police Research and Development, the Telangana police has a total of 2,75,528 installed CCTV cameras up until January 2019, amounting to 64% of the total CCTV cameras in the country. The national figure of installed CCTV cameras stands at 4,27,529.