Urban SP tells lodges to share customer info with police

• Sharing of information made mandatory
• To be implemented in phased manner
• Lodges to install VIMS software that links them with police control room
• Awareness meeting held for lodge owners

Tirupati: The Tirupati Urban Police are making plans to ensure fool proof security at the world famous hill shrine Tirumala and Tirupati. A The cops have decided to utilise advanced technology methods for this purpose.

As per this new plan, the information of visitors at each and every lodge or hotel should be passed on to the police control room and the information would be stored in server computer system. Urban SP SV Rajasekhara Babu convened a meeting with lodge owners here on Wednesday to explain about the new system to them. Addressing the meeting, the SP stated that every lodge should install Visitors Information Management System (VIMS) software on their computers, which would be connected to server computer at police control room through web. "The Hyderabad based I-WIN IP Services Company has come forward to supply the software at nominal price of Rs 16,500 each of the lodges. Whenever a visitor comes for accommodation, the executives at the hotel will take a photograph of the person through web camera and enter the details like name, address, contact number and purpose of his or her visit in the computer. The police can access all this information at any time," he said. The Urban Police are planning to complete this project in a phased manner, he added. SV Rajasekhara Babu explained that private hotels would adapt to the system in the first phase while TTD's pilgrims cottage complexes and small lodges would follow it in the second phase and the guest houses would adapt the technology in the third phase. "There are more than 400 lodges in Tirupati and on an average about 70,000 visitors check in the hotels every day. As there are chances of anti social elements taking shelter in the hotels, information about every visitor is certainly needed to control the crimes on a preventive measure. With this new system, there is no need for personal visit of police to the lodges and the owners will submit the register every day for police checking through online, he explained. If any suicide or murder or any other crime takes place in any of the lodges the visitors' data would greatly help in the police investigation, he pointed. We are planning to bring few more advanced technologies to private guest houses, apartments and to rented houses. Many anti-social elements are treating Tirupati city as safe haven for their activities and there is a need to monitor the movements of every culprit, the SP stressed. Software expert, M. Vijaya Kumar said that the new system was proved successful in Ongole town and it would be useful to lodge owners. Owners of the lodges expressed their willingness to adapt to the new system at the earliest.