Corpn to launch app to manage night shelters

CHENNAI: The Greater Chennai Corporation will have an exclusive mobile phone application to manage the night shelters and to keep track of homeless persons in the city.

According to a Corporation official, the smartphone application would have details of all the night shelters in the city and details of the residents. “The daily report of the night shelters, including the number of residents and new residents and amount spent for operating the night shelters, will be uploaded to the applications so that the higher officials can keep a tab,” the official said.

The official added that rescue teams would also get alerts about the rescue operations to be carried out through the applications. The plan is to link the new application with the Namma Chennai application to allow the city residents to report the homeless persons in need of help with photos. “This will help us rescue more homeless persons from the streets.” “We have floated tender inviting the developers to create the smartphone application and to install finger-print scanners at all the night shelters in the city,” the official said. Presently, the civic body maintains 54 night shelters in which 1,600 homeless persons are accommodated. The night shelters are maintained by non-governmental organisations and the rescued homeless persons are being given skill training so that they could lead a life after getting out of the shelters. As per the rules, the shelters can not house homeless persons for a long time. Of the 54 night shelters, 13 night shelters are located in major government hospitals to provide shelter for the relatives of the patients.