Number plate reading cameras commence vigil in Madurai city

Police in the temple city, which is a gateway to the southern districts, has come up with a novel way of policing by installing cameras to automatically recognise the number plates of vehicles passing through it. The police have launched this initiative to leave no stone unturned in its quest to reduce crimes in Madurai city. 

Commissioner of Police Prem Anand Sinha inaugurated the facility at Police Outpost near Teppakulam in Madurai recently. After inaugurating, he said 25 cameras have been installed now at 12 city police check posts and few important places in the city like AV Bridge with the cooperation of the public. In the next few weeks, the facility would cover all the city police check posts, all important traffic signal junctions and bridges in the city so that crime prevention would be given a technological boost. 

In this drive, automatic number plate recognition cameras are being installed at all the entry points to the city and at important junctions inside the city which automatically records number plates of the vehicles moving in and out of the city. 

With the help of the database of vehicle numbers, it would be easy for the police to search for a particular vehicle suspected to be involved in a crime or even blacklist certain vehicles by entering its numbers on the database. “If any particular vehicle is detected the system will generate an alert,” the Commissioner said. Further, he said these cameras could also detect vehicles with no number plates and raise an alarm. 

He also added that the next plan is to integrate all these cameras and make the database accessible from the city police office itself to effectively use and monitor it.