MULTAN, Jan 8: The city took the lead after satellite-based global positioning system (GPS) started functioning regularly from Sunday airing signal to police functionaries that they are being watched by their superiors. “It is a giant leap forward towards achieving the e-policing objective and we claim that Multan is the first city in the country to have GPS,” said Multan Range DIG Malik Muhammad Iqbal during a demonstration of the advanced technology that empowers senior police officers to have exact location of their subordinates in the field leaving no room for them to deceive their officers.

“We also have plans to install closed circuit cameras at all police stations to maintain e-record of the day-to-day public dealings there,” DPO Munir Chishti said.

“It would help us improve our decision making when dealing with complaints against the officials,” the DPO said.

DIG Malik Iqbal said the GPS initiative was taken by the Punjab IGP and the city district government contributed funds.

With Rescue 15 Centre at Qasim Bagh as its headquarters, the system gets information from the satellite about the whereabouts of a vehicle fitted with a satellite censor and shows it on the monitor screen as a blinking cursor on the map.

Initially the satellite censors have been fitted with four police patrolling vehicles whose movement was first checked through wireless and then was confirmed through the system during the demonstration. The number of vehicles under monitoring would increase up to 25 within a month.

“We have the road map of the whole Pakistan and can spot a vehicle even if it goes out of the district’s jurisdiction. We are also going to improve the map.”

The police vehicles’ moment-to-moment movement is now under monitoring. “The system will tell location of the vehicle after every five seconds,” the senior police officers said.

The Asian Development Bank has promised funding for e-policing project and has selected four cities in Punjab, including Multan, Lahore, Gujrat and Faisalabad. A team of ADB has also reached Multan for the purpose, the DIG said.

CLOUDY FORECAST: The local met office has forecast a partly cloudy weather during the next 24 hours in the city and its suburbs.