TIRUPATI: The police is now earning money from YouTube on sharing CCTV footages. The Tirupati urban police earned $887.89 (Rs 56,820) recently uploading videos on YouTube through their channel maintained by the command and control centre.
With social media so popular, interesting things go viral of reach lakhs and people. Police created a YouTube channel and a Facebook page for generating public awareness by sharing interesting videos.
The Tirupati urban police uploaded 747 videos in three categories — thefts and crime, accidents and traffic violations. As many as 7,128 users subscribed and videos were viewed by more than 70 lakh persons.
Meanwhile, the Facebook page, started in 2015, had 3.13 lakh likes and was followed by 3.45 lakh. Police also created a ‘contact us’ form on the Facebook page, where a complaint would be redirected to the SP’s official mail.
Apart from the Tirupati police page there was also a Tirupati She Team page, followed by more than 40,000. The Facebook page tops the list when compared to other police pages in the state.
Tirupati Urban SP Abhishek Mohanty told Deccan Chronicle, “We are very happy that our intention of creating awareness among the public is successful. Our team will keep doing the same. This is not just about the rewards given by YouTube or something, Many of the users are following our pages and watching our videos, This creates awareness in the public. We are also planning to come up with some innovative ideas soon. We are here to serve the people, using technology and social media to make things better for the public.”
DSP Sudhakar Reddy, in charge of command and control, said, “Most of the viewers write back to us enquiring about the videos, some approach us for complaints.”
“We are really happy that the videos we uploaded had gone viral many times. The viewers would be careful if they went to such surroundings filled with thieves and pickpockets in the city. Our Facebook page has more viewers and followers when compared to some of the cities in other states too,” he said.
