india

Updated: Jan 09, 2018 13:08 IST

A 17-year-old student has come forward to help Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) in its fight against dengue that has claimed lives in the town in the past couple of years.

A drone made by Rajiv Ghosh, the only son of a tea seller, will be pressed into service in north Bengal’s biggest town to take pictures of stagnant water on terraces of buildings if test runs are satisfactory. Rajiv’s father Ranjit (56) sells tea at Siliguri railway station. “Soon we will have test flights of the drone and will look into the quality of the images,” said SMC mayor and MLA Asok Bhattacharya.

The Class 11 student of arts of Margaret High School in Pradhan Nagar has already held a round of meetings with the mayor and SMC officials.

Ironically, the boy has interest in science but was not eligible for the science stream in the +2 level as his Class 10 marks fell short of the requirements. But it did not deter him from pursuing his interest and he worked for seven months to make the drone and fit it with a high resolution camera.

The project,however, was easier said than done. Ghosh had to convince his parents. “My parents borrowed some money after they got convinced. A few of my neighbours, too, helped with funds. I have spent ₹1.5 lakh to make the drone,” Ghosh told HT.

He took seven months to finish the work. The boy purchased parts from the US and China and worked on the drone alone.

While the boy began putting the drone together, he heard the Siliguri mayor saying that he is toying with the idea of deploying drones to check dengue. That led him to think how it can be put to that use.

According to him, his drone can rise to a of 1,800 metres, but due to security reasons its height will be restricted to 200 metres.

“The trials will be conducted for about a month,” said Nurul Islam, the councillor of ward number 45 where Rajiv resides.

“I have tested it extensively and I am satisfied,” said Ghosh.

The Siliguri mayor said he would utilise the drone to fight the menace of dengue in the city if the pictures are satisfactory.

Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has used drones to detect stagnant water and garbage in high rises in and around South City Mall in Kolkata and associated residential towers that are more than 30 stories high.

In 2017, though none died of dengue in Siliguri, unofficially the number of deaths in the mosquito-borne disease stood at four.