Naidu pitches for mobile app to hunt down criminals

Vijayawada: The on-going Krishna Pushkaralu had come as an opportunity for tech-savvy Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu to develop new technology and introduce the same into the day-to-day activities of the government.

Sitting with the representatives of the Microsoft Corporation, the mobile companies and some students of engineering colleges, besides the IT department, the Chief Minister is exploring every opportunity to introduce technology and upgrade existing ones.

Addressing officials at the Command Control Room here on Sunday, the Chief Minister announced introduction of yet another mobile application to keep a watch on the movement of anti-social elements.

Taking cue from its use by a constable to arrest a criminal during Krishna Pushkaralu on the previous day, the Chief Minister announced that the government would further develop the mobile application and use it at all important places in all major cities across the State.

This would help keep an eye on the movement of criminals, he said and asserted that the mobile application would bring down the crime rate.

The government is developing a new mobile application to track the movements of the criminals. The Chief Minister said that they have over 6 lakh finger prints of various criminals spread over the 13 districts. These finger prints are available on the Fingerprint Information Network Systems (FINS), developed by a software engineer, Ajay and endorsed by senior IPS officer, P V Sunil Kumar, currently working as IG, CID.

Using this network, a constable working in Vijayawada Central Crime Station, Balashowri, took the fingerprints of a person moving suspiciously at Durga Ghat. In 15 minutes, the fingerprint was matched with one of those 6 lakh fingerprints available and the suspicious person was identified as noted criminal, Pallapati Srinu of Tenali in Guntur district.

We are now developing this mobile application and would use it extensively with the police to keep a check on the movements of the criminals,” the Chief Minister said.

He had first adopted a large number of drones, close circuit cameras and mobile applications to keep an eye on the bathing ghats, pushkar nagars. The mobile applications and the electronic devices have also helped him to review the arrangements including sanitation and health, assess the quality of food and had direct interaction with the pilgrims.

Having connected all 170 bathing ghats in the three districts of Kurnool, Guntur and Krishna with the help of these devices, the Chief Minister on Sunday directed the officials to upgrade the cameras used for the Drone and CC TVs.

I want to use the technology to make assessment of every work that is executed in the State in future and want minute details to be collected using these devices,” he said while interacting with the media persons. The Drones will have high resolution cameras for effective results, he said and had directed the IT department to procure more drones and cameras.

Naidu had already adopted the new mobile application, Kaizala, developed by the Microsoft Corporation and directly interacted with pilgrims and received their valuable feedback during Krishna Pushkaralu.

The volunteers are collecting the mobile numbers of the pilgrims at the bathing ghats and pushkar nagars and are asked to send their feedback to the government.

They are also asked to send their selfies to the government using the Kaizala application. The government had also decided to provide Android mobiles to all officers of all departments and start using the technology. “I would have direct interaction with the officers on various government programmes in future,” the Chief Minister added.

By:D Gopi