Mobiles and public transport to be furnished with ‘panic button’ in India
The daily newspaper is flooded with rape and harassments inflicted upon women. With safety being sought for by every woman in India, applications such as iFollow, FightBack, Help Alert and Nirbhaya to name a few are very handy. But it is the case that not every woman has a smart phone! In a bid to address every woman’s safety, the government involves itself directly in the process.
The Indian government is set to introduce ‘panic buttons’ on public transport which is enabled by GPS. A mobile app will be released with similar features in the near future. The direct involvement of the government will ensure coordination between local police control rooms and the users.
In a meeting on tuesday regarding projects for women’s safety in the country, the idea of GPS enabled ‘panic buttons’ was conveyed by the IT department to the finance minister, P Chidambaram, the government officials claim. A superior IT ministry official conveyed to Times of India that the details of the project would be announced soon by the minister. ‘As soon as the passenger presses the button, signals will go to the local control room and the information will subsequently reach police.’ said an official. It was also said that as soon as a vehicle deviates from the usual or determined route, there will be alerts and CCTV frames will pop up in the control room.
In the year after the infamous Delhi gang-rape incident, there have been major reforms in security systems in the capital city. The Delhi Transport Corporation buses are equipped with both GPS and CCTV facilities. Even the Delhi Metro is equipped with CCTV and officers adorned with uniforms as well as plain clothes in stations as well as trains. Even so, the major drawbacks are that Delhi Police are not equipped with the latest technology and hence an unproductive response time. They don’t have proper GPS units, and instead, are typically given a print out from the control room with the address or location.
Hopefully, these drawbacks are ruled out with the new Rs. 1,700 crore project of installing ‘panic buttons’, CCTV cameras and even RTVs, which will provide last mile connectivity in urban areas. One of the major goals of introducing the ‘panic buttons’ is to equip every mode of public transport, including auto-rikshaws and taxis, with safety methods. The second major goal is to implement this technology in the cities across the country. It is also expected that the mobile application can be downloaded and installed in even basic mobile phone models.
The possible downsides are that the commuters who use public transportation may not go through the user’s manual and may trigger the ‘panic buttons’ out of curiosity or by accident or by trouble-causers. This results in the police showing up at their location to no use which is a tragic loss of time and resources. People need to be educated to the purpose and usage of this technology and also in what occasions it may be used.
Women Security needs a revolution, especially in India! What do you think? Will this project help?! comment your opinion :