Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Police plans to extend the I-CLIK (Instant-Complaint Login Internet Kiosk) service for women to lodge complaints online, by setting up more kiosks across the state. The I-CLIK, which was launched in January this year, enables women, who are generally apprehensive about visiting a police station, to file a complaint online from the kiosk.
"We want to plan many more. As of now around 20 kiosks are set up in Visakhapatnam, Guntur, Prakasam, Nellore districts of the state. Every kiosk has facility of three languages to lodge complaint. In collaboration with banks and other organisations, we are ready to set up more kiosks,"
Director General of Police Jasti Venkata Ramudu said today. On Abhayam (fearlessness), a mobile application to come to the rescue of distressed women and which was launched along with I-CLIK, the DGP said this facility can also be utilised to check the menace of ragging. This app gives a sense of security to girl students also, he said.
"They (I-CLIK and Abhayam) are slowly becoming popular. Once they become popular, interaction with police will become very easy. There is no need to go to police station to lodge complaints. Technology has been used much more effectively in the US and UK," Ramudu explained.
Since the app was launched as many as 2,669 calls were received and majority of them were just test calls and out of it only 79 were actionable calls involving cases of crime against women, missing persons, property offences among others, the top cop said.
Each kiosk has facilities such as computer, high-speed internet connectivity. The complaint format is menu driven and user friendly. One has to log in and file the complaint.
Once the complaint is lodged, it will land up at the central command station and the relevant police station will be alerted to act upon.
The app comes with a panic button programmed to send alerts and the caller can lodge his or her complaint or problem and the call will be routed through a server to the Central Command Station. And immediately, the nearest police station or police beat or patrol will be alerted and moved to the location. If the caller is unable to specify the location, then the location will be tracked through the help of GPS.
