THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The move made by the Motor Vehicle Department to buy drone cameras at a cost of 400 crores for finding traffic law violators has failed. Transport Minister Antony Raju has intervened and halted the project seeing that the government may suffer setbacks if it goes ahead with the project in the current situation.

Kerala Kaumudi had brought out the information contained in the report confidentially prepared by the Department of Motor Vehicles. The new project was to fly drone cameras to find traffic violations.

This is amid allegations of corruption regarding the installation of 726 AI cameras for Rs 232.25 crore. The recommendation of the report was to invite tenders and find an agency to implement the project.

The actions of assigning Keltron with the project and Keltron issuing a sub-contract became controversial. With the addition of other contracts, the expenses increased and the corruption accusation by the opposition was directed even towards the father-in-law of the chief minister's son.

As per the report prepared by the MVD, one drone with AI cameras will cost up to 2 crore rupees and 200 such cameras should be purchased for the new project. This is while the AI-powered 4G robotic drone camera is available for Rs 1.55 lakh each.