Chandigarh [India], Sept 20 (ANI): Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday launched three citizen-centric services of the Chandigarh Police here. The services include the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS-Dial 122), e-Beat Book' and e-Saathi'mobile application.

"Union Home Minister, Amit Shah launched the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) - '112' helpline, 'e-Beat Book' and 'e-Saathi' App in Chandigarh today," tweeted the Spokesperson, Ministry of Home Affairs.

Shah observed that the beat officer system has been the cornerstone of the Indian Policing system for ages and through such Citizen Centric Services, a SMART Police force can be built in the country. He congratulated Chandigarh Police to have taken a lead in introducing such Citizen-Centric Services in Policing.

ERSS is one of the key projects of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs under the Nirbhaya Fund. It has been designed to play a pivotal role in mitigation or preventing escalation of crime, especially against women and children.

ERSS provides a single emergency number (112), computer-aided dispatch of field resources to the location of distress. Citizens can send their emergency information through call, SMS, email and through the 112 India mobile app.

The 'Dial-112' emergency response service is an initiative to strengthen proactive community policing that would end confusion amongst distress callers, who at times end up dialling 100 in fire or medical emergency cases.

Till now, there were over 20 numbers that were running for the help of the public for various emergency situations, which were creating confusion to the distress callers. But after launching this service public will not face such issues.

The 'E-Beat Book' is a web and mobile-based application which will ease the collection, updation and analysis of the information related to crime and criminals in a real-time. The E-Beat Book would be linked with Crime and Criminal Tracking NetworkSystems (CCTNS), which would help in a real-time updation of crime/criminal data. The citizen can directly approach the'Atal Sehbhagita Kendra' for redressal of their grievances and can render their suggestions too.

The 'E-Saathi' App would help the general public, including senior citizens, to remain in touch with the police and also give suggestions to facilitate participative community policing('Your Police at Your Doorstep' initiative).

The beat officer would be able to provide services like passport verification, tenant verification, servant verification, character certification etc. at a click of a button through the app, without the people needing to visit the police station. With this initiative, on one hand, where the beat officer would become more efficient in his/her working, this would make police-people communication a two-way process, on the other.

These valuable public services would effectively reduce the response time of police to address the distress calls of the public and strengthen the police-public interface endeavour of community policing. (ANI)