New Director General of Police (DGP) Muktesh Chander, who took over the charge in Goa recently, plans to use as much technology for decreasing crime rate and proper traffic management as possible. In an interview with Manish Arora of Elets News Network (ENN), he shares his thoughts on Smart Policing in Goa.
According to you, what are the various components of Smart Policing?
Smart Policing is a pre-condition for a city to be looked upon as smart. So, it has to be ensured before a city is declared to be smart. Some of the components that will play a major role in smart policing are Smart Traffic Management System, Smart Signalling, Smart Parking System, Passenger Information System, etc.
IT would help people locate where the nearest parking slot is available, how much is the parking space, what is the authorised price of parking and other smart guidance for parking. It would also be available to the system manager sitting in at the control room.
This would also have CCTV cameras installed everywhere, backed by video analytics, through which automatic enforcement of traffic violations, speed violations, red light jumping, wrong lane driving and wrong parking would be taken care of.
Special systems would be installed to zoom the number plates. The details of the car owner can be taken easily to initiate necessary action against violations. Signals would not be static; they would now be talking to each other. These Intelligent Traffic Signal System knows where traffic is coming from and going to.
“IT would help people locate where the nearest parking slot is available, how much is the parking space, what is the authorised price of parking and other smart guidance for parking. It would also be available to the system manager sitting in at the control room”
How much important is training and capacity building for introducing such measures for smart policing?
Training and capacity building is the most important part when we introduce a new technology. We organise training sessions and workshops for the new technology initiatives. Officials from police departments attend workshops regularly and learn about new things being implemented worldwide.
Tell us a little about e-Challan.
e-Challan is going to be an important part of the smart cities initiative. We can check online if one is a repeat offender. So, for a repeat offender, enhanced penalty and strict action could be taken.
How can technology help in reducing crime rate under Smart Policing?
In terms of criminal activities, we would have CCTV cameras installed with face recognition system. This would help trace the criminal activities going on in the night and also help us identify the criminals easily.
We will also have an automatic emergency response system, where a caller’s geolocation is available and the nearest resource information will be available readily to the person to save time and be connected.