Madurai City Police have launched a mobile application to automatically read registration numbers of vehicle and identify those with passes and those vehicles moving without any authorisation with a click of camera on their mobile phones.
The application, developed by a team of software professionals affiliated to Vickram College of Engineering, has been under trial since Wednesday and would be put to use from Friday. Police officials in all ranks and also Special Sub-Inspectors of Police and Head Constables who are involved in vehicle check would have the app on their mobile phones.
“With the photograph of the vehicle taken using the mobile phone camera, the app will read its number plate and store it in the data base. Any police officer using the app can track its movement,” Commissioner of Police S. Davidson Devasirvatham said.
Presently police are only going by the passes pasted on the vehicles. Besides, many stick some self-made sticker on their vehicle, claiming themselves to be working for government departments or other emergency services, which the police could not verify in real-time basis.
Meanwhile, the city police have also asked the Collectorate officials to include QR codes on the passes issued to government employees, private employees authorised to move and use vehicles for specific purpose.
“Once QR code is implemented in passes, we can identify unauthorised movement using the QR code readers. People who use fake passes will be caught,” Mr. Davidson said.
Can track movement
“The app will also help us track the pattern of movement of each vehicle as it is recorded in the system. Suppose a resident from K.K. Nagar is moving on a vehicle on 80-Feet-Road there and says he is going to a shop, we can accept his claim. But if a person from Iyer Bungalow is found on the same road and does not have a valid reason for his movement, first he will be warned. If he continues to violate lockdown rules, we will seize his vehicle, as all residents have been advised to go for shopping in their area of residence,” a police officer said.
As the vehicle movement will be recorded at every check post, his movement for the day could be tracked. “We can find out if a vehicle is unnecessarily moving everywhere without a reason,” he added.