State Police using app to track cops on night duty on trial basis

Sangrur In a boost to Punjab government’s efforts to enhance use of technology in policing, the Sangrur Police have developed a mobile application (app) to track its policemen on night duty, nakas and patrolling. Developed over a period of eight-nine months in collaboration with a private Information Technology (IT) firm, the app works on the basis of sending an alert to senior officials in case of absenteeism among policemen on these sensitive duties.

“The app is on use on a trial basis,” said Sangrur SSP Sandeep Garg, adding that the district police had also developed a range of software to resolve issues that caused daily inconveniences like accessing data of criminals, stock of essentials and pending litigation etc.

“The app and the software are the result of at least a 100 meetings and work over nine months. This is way forward for policing, where technology is increasingly adopted,” the SSP added.

A source said that using the software, alerts for litigation in high court can be generated ten days before the date. “Over 1,500 cases from Sangrur are pending in Punjab and Haryana HC. The work of preparing replies and compilation of data, which take a lot of time, will be done lot more efficiently with the software. The new software will be installed in all police stations and investigation officers (IOs) will be able to work effectively on court cases,” the SSP added.

To reduce expenditure on Mobile CCTV surveillance van, a moveable CCTV set-up has been developed that costs Rs 60,000 instead of a CCTV police van, which costs around Rs 7-8 lakh, the SSP said, adding that corruption could also be checked with the software also generating record of vehicles, their travel history and bills, and many other such items.

“The Punjab DGP has checked the functioning of such software and approved its use. Some ideas have been implemented in the state and the rest are under trial,” the SSP added.

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