"e-tracking system would reduce delay"

What are the salient features of the e-tracking system for vehicles launched by the Tamil Nadu police?

The Central Zone of Tamil Nadu police has launched an e-tracking system for vehicles and this system would record details about motor vehicles, like the registration number, owner’s name and address, and engine and chassis number, through a computer data base.

  The e-tracking system would reduce delay in verifying details of the vehicle as well as the owner. This would enable the public to easily verify with the police all details about a vehicle in the case of an accident or thefts or even before purchasing pre-owned vehicles.

What has been the investment in terms of hardware, software and money into the new system?

We have invested about Rs 5 lakhs on two 20 GB servers, both placed in Trichy, where the Central Zone of the Tamil Nadu police. These servers are networked with the control room. As for the software, which enables the process, it is developed by students of IIT-Madras and is called ‘Smart.’ This enables an individual to obtain the data instantly from the control room, which pass them to the public either by phone or fax.

Who are the other departments, which are involved in this project? How do you get the database?

Since, the project involves only tracking of vehicles, we have tied-up with the Tamil Nadu Transport Ministry and the Road Transport Authority, and have created a comprehensive database, which would record various details about the vehicles plying across the state.

There are about 40 lakh motor vehicles in the State and the authorities update the database every week, when data from all the RTOs are collated and passed on to us in magnetic tapes.

What has been the success rate of the e-tracking system?

In the central zone, we were able to track 20 vehicles with bogus registration when the scheme was being deployed on a trial basis for three days. That shows the accuracy of the database and the success of the system itself.

Earlier, we used to manually enter the vehicle number and have to send a constable to the particular RTO concerned that involves time and money and now this system completed, removes all the hassles on the administrative front.

Typically, when a vehicle is checked, the police authorities on-duty would ask for the Registration Certificate (RC) book of the vehicle, when they don’t have, we detain the vehicle and ask the concerned people to produce a copy of it in the police station and take back the vehicle. With the new system in place, the constable on-duty calls the control room on his VHF system, and the person on the other end keys-in the number and passes on the information, then and there, thus making it faster and customer-friendly.

What are the divisions within the police department is this being implemented and what are your future plans?

The system is implemented in all the three divisions of crime, law and order as well as traffic.

In the case of crime, we use it for tracking stolen vehicles, as for law and order; we use it for tracking vehicles, which have been involved in some kind of offence. And finally, as for traffic is concerned, we will be able to ascertain the details of a person who commits a traffic violation, and thus being able to send a fine notice to his place.

In future, we are working on making the system web-enabled, so that all the database of all the vehicles plying on the roads of Tamil Nadu would be available online.

We are also in talks with some mobile operators to come out with a Unicode number, so that anyone can update as well retrieve information of vehicles by just sending an SMS.

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