In a boost to fight against crime, CM to launch Dial 112, AMBIS on Gudi Padwa

In a bid to strengthen the police force, the state government is launching Dial 112, an integrated centralised helpline for emergencies, and an automated multimodal biometric identification system (AMBIS) that will help the force improve the detection and conviction rate of crime

In a bid to strengthen the police force, the state government is launching Dial 112, an integrated centralised helpline for emergencies, and an automated multimodal biometric identification system (AMBIS) that will help the force improve the detection and conviction rate of crime. Chief minister Uddhav Thackray will inaugurate the two projects on the occasion of Gudi Padwa, Marathi New Year, on Saturday.

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray at Vidhan Bhavan. HT File Photo

Under AMBIS, police have already stored data of 6.18 lakh accused and convicted criminals by four finger print centres across the state. About 2,600 police personnel have been trained to operate the system, while the required hardware has been put in place to implement AMBIS at all police stations and police training centres.

“Installation of the software, hardware at Mumbai data centre has been completed and the required test run is over. The disaster recovery site has been installed at a data centre in Gujarat. The project is ready to go live and will be flagged off by the CM on Saturday,” an official from the home department said.

The connectivity of AMBIS to the central server helps police departments across the country find details of any particular criminal with the help of finger and palm prints, face and iris data, and get old records to make the case stronger. The state has allocated ₹53.62 crore for the project.

The Dial 112 project will help police bring down the response time to 10 minutes in cities and 15 minutes in rural areas in case of criminal activities and emergencies. The system has a state-of-the-art mechanism installed in the control rooms of all 45 commissionerates and offices of district superintendent.

The state government, which has planned to spend ₹429 crore on the project, has already spent ₹39.38 crore. The system has 849 four-wheelers and 1,372 two-wheelers in service enabled with mobile device terminal, GPS, and mobile phones.

“Currently, the calls received on 100 are operated on an outdated system, which does not enable us to identify the complainant, retrieve their previous call history and location. Besides, tracking the vehicles near the location of the crime is not possible since they have no tracking system or mobile device terminal attached to them. In the absence of the integrated database, an analysis of the crime incident or keeping a record of the action taken by the vehicles on the spot becomes difficult. Dial 112 will enable us to use all means of communication, including emails, chats, and SMS, for the effective response to complaints,” the official said.

Home minister Dilip Walse Patil said, “We are launching Dial 112 as part of the national level system. The chief minister and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar were insistent about the system which would be beneficial to common man. I am happy that it will go live from tomorrow.”