The Ministry of Railways has notified general managers of Zonal Railways and Production Units to install thermal screening equipment at the entry of all workshops and production units across the network where thousands of employees work.
RailTel — a neutral telecom infrastructure providers — in a note to Indian Railways said it was becoming clear that the combat against the virus could become a “long-drawn battle” where screening and social distancing would have to be enforced over an extended period of time till the discovery of an effective vaccine. The solution will be powered by AI, which will be smart enough to ignore other hot objects such as tea, coffee, and more, and would only pinpoint humans with higher body temperature.
“RailTel has proposed installation of the thermal screening at coach making facilities like the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, Modern Coach Factory, Rae Bareli, and Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala and other factories, workshops, loco-sheds etc. since work has already commenced in these facilities. The facility will soon be extended to originating points of trains and major railway stations en route as it is imperative to identify and segregate passengers with fever and other conditions,” a senior railway official said.
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While the Indian government is slowly relaxing the lockdown, it wants to ensure that the spread of the virus is contained by deploying cutting-edge technologies. Thermal detection is one such solution that has helped the governments in effectively monitoring the public places in real-time.
As railway operations are getting back to normal, it is crucial for the government to continuously monitor the temperature of workers and passengers around its premises for avoiding further containment. Quickly identifying and isolating COVID-19 carriers at railway stations is essential as the citizens heavily rely on the rail networks for their day-to-day needs. Failing to effectively check potential COVID-19 at railway stations can become lead to expediting the spread of the virus.
