​Bangalore Police join ‘Twitter Samvad’ service to prevent rumour mongering

Constant communication with people is necessary to maintain law and order. We have succeeded in connect people using mobile internet. By using Twitter Samvad, we can even pop SMS message to non-internet subscribers,” Bangalore police commissioner M N Reddi said.

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“In many instances, minor issues are blown out of proportion due to speculation – this eventually leads to law and order problems. Internet on mobile phones is not available everywhere. Under these circumstances, the SMS plays a crucial role in transmitting reliable information, downplaying rumors and taking people into confidence,” Reddi said.

With a follower base of over 75,000 on Twitter, the Bangalore city police’s handle @BlrCityPolice, along with the Commissioner of Police – @CPBLR and Bangalore Traffic police – @blrcitytraffic are among the 16 Twitter handles selected under the central government’s “Digital Governance Service” project.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s @CmofKarnataka account is also part of the Twitter Samvaad service. “The Bangalore Police has used Twitter well over the last six months, unlocking the potential of the platform for solving crime and building a real sense of community online. We are quite sure we will be working with a lot of similar organizations soon,” said Raheel Khursheed, Head – News, Politics and Government at Twitter India.

The idea of the program is also to assist authorities during emergencies and rescue operations in real-time and the Bangalore police fit the bill, the Twitter official said.

Twitter’s SMS tool will automatically pick three tweets of the Bangalore City Police every day and relay it via SMS to subscribers with a maximum of 45 such messages in a month. However in case of an emergency or crisis bulk SMS can be sent at a higher frequeny.

“SMS in real time can be sent to users in case a situation demands it. A participating organization can push out what we call live Tweets to users’ phones by using a specific hashtag. This will be flexible,” Raheel Khursheed said.

Twitter is rolling out the Samvad service through its newly acquired missed call service start-up Zipdial which is being moulded to be Twitter’s first development center in India.

Twitter is rolling out the service without imposing charges on subscribers. Users can give missed calls to designated numbers and receive updates on the service they need. Apart from flash messages subscribers will also continually receive traffic and information updates.

The service details are as follows:
Bangalore City police – @BlrCityPolice – 01130495242

Commissioner of Police – @CPBLR – 01130495141

Bangalore Traffic police – @blrcitytraffic – 01130495464

Siddharamiah @CmofKarnataka – 01130494737​