Chennai, Nov 17 (IANS): The Tamil Nadu government has accorded sanction for the creation of a drone police unit for Greater Chennai Police at an outlay of Rs 3.60 crore.

The mobile drone police unit will be established at vantage points to enable a quick response from the police to help people in distress, monitoring crime prone areas, VIP route surveillance and others.

Each mobile drone police unit will have nine drones and would be housed in a container cabin used as the control room and for drone operation.

The police have identified three types of drones:

(a) Quick response special payload drone -- high definition camera with thermal/night vision, live video streaming, loud speaker, continuous flying range of 2 kms, 30 minutes of flight time and gross weight of 2.5 kg.

(b) Long range surveillance drone that can take off vertically, 30 kms and 100 minutes of continuous flying and gross weight of five kg.

(c) Lifeguard drone with heavy lift capability, one km flying range and 15 minutes of continuous flight time.

The government has directed the police to associate with the faculty of the Madras Institute of Technology who have worked on unmanned aerial vehicles in the Department of Aeronautics for technical specifications.