A Hawk Eye Application

Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh has been one of the highest dacoity prone

districts in the state. The crime against property has always been high in the

district. Guntur district police has taken innovative programs to give a boost

to the policepublic interface.

It was on September 11, 2004, that Guntur district police in Andhra Pradesh

pledged to fight and prevent crimes by launching their new hi-tech control room.

Code named as control room tracker, it included GIS and GPS based

applications, and wireless remote surveillance. Ironically, the Guntur police

commissioned this new system on the third anniversary of the terror attack on

the World Trade Center in the US, which itself is a statement. It shows the

commitment of the Guntur police to fight crime and respond to citizens needs.

Implemented as the first ever e-governance project by the Guntur police, the

hi-tech system that incorporated GIS, GPS, and remote surveillance provided

better security and enhanced responsiveness to people of the Guntur city. A

striking feature which made the system acceptable was the increased

participationboth from the citizens and the government. This resulted in a

paradigm shift in the working of the police by way of faster crime prevention

and detection, grievance redressal, improvements in manpower productivity, and

considerable savings on expenditure.

This e-governance initiative has to some extent also improved the public

confidence in the police. Such a system also created transparency and acted as

an interface between citizens, government, and police. One of the most important

objectives of the Guntur Police was to usher in government, process

re-engineering by introducing new processes and new technologies, which would

facilitate work efficiencies, thereby providing proactive and improved services

to citizens.

The centralized control room monitors the city of Guntur on a 24/7 basis

through a remote basis. It acts as a call center, where citizens can lodge their

grievances or report incidents. The control room then coordinates with the force

on the field, and dispatches the nearest patrol vehicle to the scene of incident

without delay.

The control room tracker consists of digital maps with relevant information,

call center, automatic vehicle tracking system, remote surveillance, critical

incident mapping, management and documentation, and integration with crime

investigation and monitoring system database such as CCIS, CMIS, and E-Cops.

By applying ICT effectively from the grass roots level upwards, the Guntur

police maintained its image, and were also able to deliver better services, and

eliminate crime to a large extent. The control room tracker has been a classic

example of how with the use of effective and efficient ICT tools, transparency

and credibility can be created.

PC Suraj



surajp@cybermedia.co.in