Soon, an app to show you ‘dark’ patches of the city

NEW DELHI: Delhiites will soon be able to spot dark stretches of the city on their mobile phones and flag alerts to the civic agencies with the help of Delhi Police’s soon-to-be-launched mobile application.

This application called ‘Delhi Dark Spots App’ will help users, specially women, to avoid such ‘vulnerable’ and ‘dark’ routes.

Senior Delhi Police officials said a pilot project in coordination with the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will be launched in central Delhi areas by mid-february. Officials said that through this new mobile application, people can register complaints about defunct or partially-lit street lamps and receive status alerts directly from the civic agencies concerned.

Special commissioner of police (operations and women safety) Sanjay Baniwal said the objective behind this initiative is to make the city safe and curb crimes against women. “This will also allow our police personnel to keep a tab on faulty street lights across the city and take steps to turn identified dark stretches into properly lit public spaces,” said Baniwal.

After the Delhi gang-rape in 2012, the Delhi Police had conducted a survey of the city’s roads and identified dark spots vulnerable to street crimes. An independent survey conducted by NGO Safetipin also showed that Delhi had 7,438 dark spots. After the surveys, police control room vans were asked to send reports of such dark stretches in their areas every week.

Sharing details about the application, the officer said that after downloading the app, the mobile users will have to register with it by feeding personal details. “After the log-in, the user will see a Google map on the mobile screen on which street lamps available in a radius of one kilometre will be reflected. By clicking on any lamp, the user will be able to see if it is functional, partially or properly lit,” said the officer. Users will be able to see status of street lamps in their desired stretches as well. The application will also allow the users to click photographs of dark spots and stretches and post comments. “Once submitted, the alerts, photographs and comments will directly reach the junior engineer (JE) of the zone of the civic agency concerned through SMS and email,” said Devendra Arya, deputy commissioner of police (operations).

Arya said the JE would respond to the alert and rectify the problem. The engineer concerned would then send the updated status, which will automatically reach the central administrator and the person who raised the issue, Arya said.

The Delhi Police is developing the mobile application with the help of the ministry of electronics and information technology.

“After the successful trial run in NDMC areas, the facility will be launched officially in areas under the three civic bodies in a phase-wise manner,” said Arya.