More than a month after starting work on a pilot project of developing a voice app for detecting COVID-19, the BMC is yet to make any progress in the matter. While the civic body is trying to speed up the process, of the 500 voice samples needed for the first part of the project, only 200 have been collected. Another 1,500 samples are needed before the app can be rolled out.

The first 500 samples are being collected at the NESCO centre in Goregaon. Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said, "We have been working on collecting the first 500 samples from patients who have undergone RT-PCR tests as well and the process should be completed over the next week. Once the algorithm for artificial intelligence (AI) is ready, we will check another 1,500 samples with the software and verify the findings with the RT-PCR results for accuracy."