GOVERNMENT
OF INDIA
A Digital India Initiative
GOVERNMENT
OF INDIA
Background :
The Covid-19 pandemic has engulfed our health system and is transmitted primarily when people breath in air contaminated by droplets from an infected person. The most important mitigative measure to combat covid is to wash hands and wear masks.
New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) has set-up Community Markets in various blocks throughout New Town. The CB Community Market in CB Block is set-up as a multipurpose facility with both shops as well as multipurpose halls. These multipurpose halls are used for weddings, events and also as vaccination camps from time-to-time. Thus, the footfall at CB community market is quite large. Although the NKDA guards posted at CB Market instruct all visitors to wash hands and wear masks, there have been instances, where due to multiple entry and exit points people may evade wearing masks in spite of being aware of the risks.
Solution:
Hence, to bring about a behavioral change among people and make them comply with Covid guidelines, it was deemed necessary by NKDA to use technology to point out the specific cases where masks have not been worn by visitors. Thus, a system has been developed that can automatically identify maskless persons at CB Community Market, New Town.
Solution Components:
– CB Markel has 4 entrances. One CCTV camera is placed at the entrance that detects people.
– The camera feed is analysed by an AI/ML-based image processing algorithm that detects maskless persons and plays an alert/ audio clip at the time they are detected.
– Audio is played over a public address system installed in the market in both English and Bengali.
– The system has the provision of an MIS that can generate a report of the number of unmasked people detected with snaps.
The hope is that use of this system will create a sense among the people that they are being monitored and help control the daily infection levels.
The image shows system detecting people wearing masks and playing an audio warning. The masked person is not detected.
Camera at CB Market near the entrance
Results Achieved:
An analysis of the above data reveals that the Mask Detection System installed at CB Market has been extremely successful in creating awareness among people to wear masks. The number of people who did not wear masks has fallen by nearly two thirds owing to the case specific alerts generated by the solution without any human intervention. The above data proves that this solution has been successful in mitigating the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic to a great extent and that it can be replicated in other areas to generate similar results.