Cyberabad police to keep an eye on cabs

All taxis plying in Cyberabad have to be registered with police before May 1

Several incidents of abduction of and sexual assault on software employees in recent months, Cyberabad police have finally begun efforts to address the problem.

All call taxis and cabs plying in the Hitec City and surrounding areas regularly will have to register themselves with the Cyberabad Traffic Police before May 1, Cyberabad traffic chief and DCP Avinash Mohanty said.

Once registered, the cabs will be given QR-Code based registration cards that will be displayed prominently at the back of the driver’s seat.

In case of any problem, all one has to do is to scan the code with their smartphones to get the details of the cab and its driver, Mr. Mohanty said. The cards will also bear the address and other details of the cab and its driver, he said.

“Those who do not get their registration done by the deadline will be penalised heavily, and cabs of the repeat offenders will be seized,” he warned.

To provide better security to the software professionals who routinely work in unearthly hours, the traffic police have also requested the installation of 150 additional surveillance cameras in the area.

There are about 47 cameras functioning in the area presently, and additional cameras will add to surveillance capabilities, Mr. Mohanty observed.

“Necessary infrastructure, like optical fibre cables connecting the junctions with central monitoring cell, is already in place. All we need is to install the cameras. We are also requesting the agencies to equip the cameras with night-vision capabilities,” he said.

Cyberabad traffic police is also going digital in a big way to keep a track of the violators.

The upcoming e-challan system will contain customised Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) along with better software to track the challans.