Computerised network by April to connect all traffic divisions

For the purpose of traffic control,Pune has been divided into four zones and 30 traffic divisions. Each zone has an officer of assistant commissioner of police (ACP) rank and each division has two-three police inspectors or assistant police inspectors. The traffic branch also has offices for administration and planning,prosecution,road safety patrol (RSP) and control room.

Manoj Patil,deputy commissioner of police (traffic),said a large chunk of their manpower was now engaged in taking documents from one office to another. “Exchange of documents through Internet will not only reduce the burden on manpower,but also keep track of all communication. All these offices will be given a computer and Internet connection and the system will be in place by April. All the computers will be connected through a server and a centralised database. We are now working on its technicalities.”

Earlier,the traffic police had started using Facebook for better grievance redressal. “We had felt the need for better ways of communication among ourselves after we started using Facebook. In the initial phase,the basic record-keeping will be done completely in digital format. In the next phase,we will start digitising the other documents,” Patil said.

Prasanna Bangale,assistant police inspector (Hinjewadi traffic division) said two-three constables who were given the duty of carrying daily dispatches between police stations,ACP offices and the head office could now be used for traffic management.

Some months ago,the traffic policemen were given BlackBerry phones under the Traffi-I-Cop initiative,with the data of all vehicles stored in a database. The scheme has proved to be of great help in nabbing vehicles with fake registration numbers. Vijaykumar Palsule,police inspector (planning and administration),said,“The basic idea is to put in place a system of e-governance with better accountability. In future,we can integrate the Traffi-I-Cop system with this network.”