RAIPUR: The Union ministry of electronics and information technology and the director general, National Information Centre selected the 'Citizen Cop', an app devised by Chhattisgarh police, as the best user-friendly mobile application.
The smart policing and comprehensive app covering the five districts of Raipur zone was launched by the Chhattisgarh chief minister Dr Raman Singh in September 2015. It meets all the security needs of the citizens who can conveniently access the police services through it and read the status reports of their complaints.
With this app the citizen is relieved from unnecessary hassles of visiting the police station and it enables them to report the incident or crime instantly. The inspector general of police G P Singh who pioneered the concept, will be receiving the award from the union minister for electronic and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on December 19.
“The app has enabled the police to establish a relationship of trust and gained confidence of the citizens”, Singh claimed.
The multipurpose features of the mobile app, which has received FICCI’s special jury award in May this year, have added distinct functions when compared to similar apps operating in other metro cities of the country.
For instance, a family or a group of four can create a geo-fencing through flagging the geographical limits (points) on the Google Map as safe zone. It enables the device to send ‘SMS alerts’ to contacts already configured (group of four) if the fenced boundary is traversed by any of the four. For example, the parents will get an alert on their mobile through Citizen Cop the moment their child crosses the fenced limits flagged by them.
One can easily access the detail of any vehicle (suspected or otherwise) through the registration number search. Fare calculation (auto/taxi) on the given route by entering the source and destination points. Residents can search their vehicle in case it has been towed by traffic police. The mobile phone numbers of the police officers from inspector general to the station house officer of the corresponding police station are also made available for any emergency services. The numbers of administrative officials of concerned districts also provided there.
The App features options to create one's own close group in the app, where one can keep track of group members' location, besides latest news update at hand about police department/traffic. Additionally, it has features to report an incident or to report about a lost article.
On December 2, nearly a dozen people who lost their mobile phones received the phones back after they lodged their complaint on Citizen Cop.
Previous month, four teenage girls were timely rescued along with the three others from getting lured by swindlers into becoming actresses and models in Mumbai.