A state-of-the-art control room for Kochi city was inaugurated by Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan here on Sunday.
Aimed at fortifying the security of public places, streamlining traffic and drastically reducing emergency response time taken by the police to less than five minutes, the facilities put in place as part of the control room modernisation include a network of surveillance cameras with video streaming facility, multi-mode communication devices and an ‘automated dial 100' system developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) to fully automate control room activities, online tracking and managing of patrol vehicles and speeding up of police assistance to citizens in distress.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Balakrishnan said the State would need a network of high-tech police control rooms in major cities and the arterial highways.
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A high-tech control room helped the police prevent crimes and effortlessly track down offenders. Similar systems, already installed in Thiruvananthapuram, were of immense assistance to the police in efficiently managing events of the magnitude of the Attukal Pongala festival in the capital. Similar facilities were being planned for implementation in various cities including Kozhikode in a phased manner, he said.
The Director General of Police Jacob Punnoose said that the new system would help the police provide security service to the citizens at their door steps. City Police Commissioner Manoj Abraham, in a presentation, said that the city police control room was equipped with 16 flying squad vehicles equipped with GPS (Global Positioning System), city's GIS (Geographic Information system) maps, two-way secure communication devices and SMS facility.
The control room's 12 LCD monitors displayed video images beamed by the 22 dome and 48 fixed traffic and security cameras installed at various points in the city, he said. All calls and communication to the control room would be recorded. The ‘automated dial 100' system helps the control room personnel handle up to 30 calls at a time. The location of the caller would be displayed on the GIS map with his caller ID, name and address, which would help the person taking the call to alert on priority a patrol vehicle in the vicinity of the caller, he said. If the call originated from an area other than the distress location, the call-handler would get the distress location details and feed it to the system to activate prompt response.
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The ‘automated dial 100' system works on an integrated solution based on automated vehicle tracking system, GIS, call taking and dispatching system over advanced wireless communication technology CDAC said in a media note.
The police personnel who successfully investigated the Bhaskara Karanavar murder case were felicitated at the function. C. M. Dinesh Mani, MLA, presided over the function. Inspector General of Police Ernakulam Range B. Sandhya welcomed the gathering. CDAC Director General Rajan T. Joseph spoke.