According to an official, the East Coast of Railway (ECOR) is prepared to deploy intrusion detection systems (IDS) in places where elephants move in order to prevent deaths from train accidents.
According to the official, the IDS will assist in detecting elephants as they approach the railway tracks and send a warning to the loco pilot, station master and station manager, preventing the accident.
“The IDS will help detect elephants approaching the railway tracks and an alert will be sent to the local pilot, station master, also station manager so that everybody throughout the loop has the information that there is an elephant on the track,” said Biswajit Sahu, Chief Public Relations officer, East Coast of Railway. He further said that this system is a multifaceted system.
“This will help us to understand whether any boulder is falling on the track or not. Suppose there is a landslide nearby or there is any digging activity nearby, illegal digging activity, all these things it will be able to detect,” he further stated.
According to a source, seven elephant deaths were reported in the state in just the month of March. The majority of these fatalities are attributed to train and/or automobile accidents, electrocution, or poaching. In addition, 416 elephants were among the 2776 wild creatures that have been killed in Odisha over the previous five years (2017–18 to 2021–22).