VIJAYAWADA: Police constables assigned for night beat duty in the city are not disturbing households in the late nights to sign their duty register. It doesn't mean that constables have stopped their night rounds. On the other hand, they have intensified the vigil by not leaving a single street without a visit.

Thanks to the electronic beat-monitoring system introduced by the Police Commissionerate four months ago, all the 50 beat constables are appending `e-signatures' at 500 localities under the purview of 10 police stations every night.

With the system achieving its twin objective of enhancing accuracy in the night beat system and reducing burden on the households of spending sleepless nights, the police officials plan to extend the system to the rural areas soon.

Sub-inspectors of police used to keep attendance registers at select houses in different localities and beat constables used to append signatures in registers in the presence of residents late in the night. Sub-inspectors used to verify the signatures on the next day to know whether constables visited all localities.

Some constables used to sign the registers in the early hours of the day, so that they were not caught by the higher-ups. Thus the purpose of night beats was defeated and in many cases, the police had failed to prevent house-breakings.

On the lines of the Cyberabad Police Commissionerate, the city police too introduced electronic beat-monitoring system in the last week of October and provided training to constables working in the 10 urban police stations. Hyderabad-based Bartronics India Limited provided technical support for the system.

`Guard reader'

Under the new system, the beat constables have to carry `guard reader,' an electronic gadget resembling remote control of a television. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, small plastic plates with separate code numbers, have been fixed to wall surfaces at select localities.

When the constable places the `guard reader' close to the wall, it reads the tag's code and records the time. After returning to the police station, the constable has to load the tag in the computer and download the information.

"Under the electronic beat-monitoring system, the constables cannot avoid visiting some localities and change the timings of attending their duties," says city Police Commissioner Umesh Sharraf.

Rs. 7 lakhs spent

The commissionerate has spent Rs. 7 lakhs for installing the system in One-Town, Two-Town, Governorpet, Suryaraopet, Krishnalanka, Satyanarayanapuram, Machavaram, Patamata, Penamaluru and Nunna police stations.

"We haven't taken the help of sponsors to install the system, but spent our own funds. We are planning to install the system in rural police stations soon," Mr. Sharraf says.

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