Govt looking at slew of transport measures to improve women’s safety

NEW DELHI: GPS-based control rooms to monitor public transport, installation of video cameras inside buses to provide real-time assistance to women at risk in cities, using GPS to direct police vehicles to reach crime spots and introduction of a panic button in mobile phones. These are some of the options that the Centre is looking at to improve women's safety in cities.

According to sources, at a recent meeting, the proposals of transport, home and IT ministries were considered by the finance ministry which will allocate budget from the Nirbhaya fund.

A senior road transport ministry official said they proposed to have control rooms to monitor movement of public transport vehicles, particularly buses, in one million-plus cities. The plan was prepared by Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS) based on the model that the national capital has.

"Once all the GPS installed vehicles are linked to the control room, we will get alerts as soon as the vehicles go off track or get diverted. We can work closely with the police to get their help," the official said.

The official said government is looking into the option of whether to have such control rooms in every city or for a cluster of cities.

Sources said the information technology ministry has mooted a proposal to have a panic button on all mobile phones to send out distress signals in case of need. Ministry of home affairs has also proposed to monitor all its vehicles, particularly PCR vans, using GPS so that vehicles stationed close to the incident site can be rushed to the spot.

"All these initiatives have to be interlinked and this is easily possible since these are technology interventions to make roads and modes of public transport safer for women," said a government official.