Women's safety: MP govt to set up control command centre

Bhopal: In a bid to improve the safety of women in the public passenger vehicles, the Madhya Pradesh government would set up the technically advanced control command centre (CCC) which would keep an eye on all types of activities through the Vehicle Location Tracking Devices (VLTDs) and emergency panic buttons.

Installing the VLTD and emergency button in public transport vehicles have been made mandatory by the state Transport Department.

In this regard, a Memorandum of Undertaking has been recently signed between Transport Commissioner of Madhya Pradesh, Mukesh Jain and Sudip Dutta, Under Secretary in Central Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

"The integration of the VLTDs and emergency buttons with the CCC would pave a milestone to ensure women's safety in public transport vehicles," Mukesh Jain, Transport Commissioner of MP, said. "We want to roll out the project as early as possible with a long-term measure to ensure women's safety," Jain said.

The project will be set up with the shares of Nirbhaya Funds of the Central government, and the transport department of the MP. The CCC would receive the alerts and informations from the VLTDs, it will be integrated with the state emergency response system to indicate about the unpleasant incidents to the police and the transport department.

"Stringent laws have been enacted by the government to protect women but these legislations are not sufficient and the active participation of the people and positive thinking of the society are necessary for this," Jain added. "So, we have taken an initiative to organise the workshop across the state to educate the drivers and co-drivers of the public transport vehicles," he added.

In January 2018, the Centre issued a notification making it mandatory for all public transport vehicles, including buses and taxis, to have VLTS devices and panic buttons to especially ensure the safety of women passengers.

As per the notification, all new public transport vehicles, except autorickshaws and e-rickshaws, registered on or after January 2019, were to be equipped with VLTDs.

"The proposed control and command centre is expected to be integrated with the police's dial for quick response to passengers in distress," said Arvind Saxena, additional transport commissioner (Enforcement).

Saxena also informed that the CCC will be equipped with the real time location and plotting, geofencing and other maps based tools which will help to send quick relief.

The CCC would receive the alerts automatically like emergency, speed violation, gel-fence and VLT device tampering etc, he said.