The Gujarat Police will now use Global Positioning System (GPS) to improve policing and reduce call-response time in the state.

The technology is already being used for highway policing in Surendranagar and general policing in Rajkot rural in Rajkot range for the past several months and will now be extended to other districts and cities in Gujarat by the end of this financial year.

As a pilot project, GPS was first installed on two traffic PCR vans deployed for round the clock patrolling on a 120-km stretch between Panshina and Bamanbore on NH-8 in Surendranagar district, this March.

Encouraged by the success of this project in these two districts, the state police now proposes to install satellite-linked GPS on all police vehicles in Gujarat, so that they can be monitored and controlled from the Police Control Room (PCR) housing the GPS server.

“After the success of the project, we installed GPS on 10 more mobile police vans in Rajkot rural district. We propose to extend the technology to Jamnagar district by next month. There has been a commendable improvement in policing in and around the areas in the two districts, where these vehicles are deployed,” said DIG (Rajkot range) Manoj Shashidharan.

Senior officers said this will be done as part of the state police’ PCR modernisation project, which is being carried out under the Centre’s Modernisation of Police Force (MPF) scheme.

Tenders for installation of the GPS-GIS enabled software in all 31 PCRs in the state have already been issued, they said.

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