Kochi traffic police go Blackberry

Kochi: Traffic offenders in Kochi have to be doubly careful from now onwards as the city traffic police, perhaps for the first time in the country, are armed with Blackberry mobiles, especially designed to track down vehicle details from Regional Transport Office database in a jiffy.

Under the pilot project launched by Kerala Government, complete information about the vehicle and its owner could be instantly accessed by policemen using Blackberry mobile phones, which hitherto remained a proud possession of the elite class, especially top company executives.

Three complimentary Blackberry handsets were handed over to the police personnel in Kochi on Wednesday by Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan in the presence of DGP Jacob Punnoose.

The technology has been developed by mobile service provider Vodafone (Kerala) with the assistance of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) based on a request from the city police.

Vodafone has been associating with the Kerala police over the last two years providing technological solutions and this project was part of the partnership, its Senior Vice-President and Head (Marketing) R Suresh Kumar said in Kochi.

The phones will be connected through a network with the database of the motor vehicle department enabling the traffic police to access details of vehicles and the owners.

Once the vehicle or license number of the offender is fed into the handset, complete details regarding the owner of the vehicle, his license number and details like whether the vehicle was involved previously in any other offence and the registration number, could be obtained from the server, he said.

The Vodafone Blackberry handsets would also help the police register cases on the spot.

They also have a wireless printing technology with which challans could be served to the accused and penalty collected, Sureshkumar said.

The receipts will give the details of the violation committed by the offender, he said.

The project is being implemented in the city on an experimental basis and it was for the Government and police to take a decision on expanding it to other parts of the state, he said.

Traffic offenders would not be able to escape by providing false address as the blackberry will flash the full details of the offender at a touch of the button, he said.

Each Blackberry mobile handset cost around Rs 14,000 to Rs 15,000, he said.

Balakrishnan had stated on the occasion that the state government would be implementing a Rs 20 crore project for complete modernisation of the intelligence system of the state police force. Centre had agreed to provide Rs 15 crore for the project, he said.