The next time you land at the Chennai Central station, walk to the police booth right outside if you need to charge your phone, book a taxi or auto, to visit a temple or have questions about the route.
In a move to help stranded or confused tourists, the Greater Chennai police set up a police booth just opposite the platform ticket counter on Monday. It is manned through the day by M. Janardhanan, a traffic head constable attached to the Elephant Gate traffic police, who speaks multiple languages.
Guiding passengers
The policeman also has a list of city bus routes, hospital numbers, details of auto rickshaw and cab fares, numbers of important city hotels, tourists spots, and phone numbers of tourist taxi operators and drivers. “We guide the passengers by providing information. People can also charge their phone in the booth,” said a senior police officer.
The booth can be easily spotted as it carries messages such as ‘Greater Chennai police welcomes you’, written in Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, English and Tamil. Suburban train timings, important tourists spots, hospitals and educational institutions are mentioned all over the kiosk.
“I know Hindi, Urdu, Kannada and Telugu, apart from Tamil. I learnt these languages when I was in Bengaluru between 1982 to 1992 doing scrap business,” Mr. Janardhanan, who is in his mid-fifties. said.
More cops to be posted
The idea to help travellers and tourists was initiated by Chennai Police Commissioner A.K. Viswanathan. Tourists were till then approaching the traffic police seeking help.
“As of now, only I am at this booth, but there are plans to rope in more policemen who know different languages,” Mr. Janardhanan added.
Many passengers were seen approaching him asking for bus routes and train timings.
Mahaveer Prasad and his wife Pushpa, from Punjab, who were on their way to Kancheepuram, sought his help on Tuesday evening. “We were asking details about the nearest temple since we had some time to spend,’’ Mr. Prasad said.
