Urban India turns to Artificial Intelligence to manage civic woes

As India is poised to be the third-largest global economy, its cities, too, have undergone a steady makeover from their colonial aesthetics to a more modern avatar dotted with taller buildings, metro rails, and flyovers.

- Soumya Chatterjee

However, one thing that has remained from the bygone era is the occasional appearance of stray cattle in the hustle and bustle of busy streets, and slowing down traffic movement. Worse, they cause deadly accidents.

While the problem is ancient, the city administration in Surat has deployed a modern solution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to counter this menace.

The civic body uses an Al algorithm developed by National Institute of Technology (NIT) Surat to analyse the live video feed from cameras installed at major junctions in the city to detect stray cattle, said Jigan Patel, director of information technology at Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC).

“The alert is not issued when cattle are accompanied by a herder. But, whenever stray cattle are spotted, an alert is generated with a timestamp and location,” he said, adding that control room officials inform the on-ground dedicated municipal staff for catching stray cattle, who impound them.

Based on the directives of the Gujarat high court, SMC, in 2023, rolled out a free RFID tagging pro-gramme containing details of their owners for bovines before implementing a strict anti-stray cattle policy since November that year. The fine amounts increase progressively for repeat offenders, as part of a state law passed in the assembly in 2022 following the same high court directions.

So far, 1,545 incidents of stray cattle have been detected, with ₹8.4 lakh recovered as penalties.

The same system is used by the city to detect incidents of littering and spitting. SMC commissioner Shalini Agarwal said that this technology-enabled monitoring has helped the city to achieve a high ranking in the central government’s Swachh Survekshan.