Govt comes up with first wireless traffic controller

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) has developed India's first wireless road traffic controller technology at around one-third price of the international product, and would help in controlling traffic from any remote location.

"If we have wireless traffic control system it will help us to collate data, it will help us show if traffic is heavy, it can move forward quickly. You will also get to know number of cars on a particular route...kind of parking facility required," Law and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said here today at the 'Transfer of Technology' of the product.

C-DAC is the premier R&D organisation of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY), Ministry of Communications & Information Technology (MCIT) for carrying out R&D in IT, electronics and associated areas.

Government has invested Rs 14.75 crore in its research and development.

The Minister handed over the technology developed by a CDAC-lead consortium to eight Indian companies for commercial production for which government will charge royalty of Rs 15,000 for every Wireless Traffic Control System (WiTraC) that will be installed.The system can run without power for three days.

"The system suits Indian traffic and is different from products developed abroad," DEITY Secretary J Satyanarayana, who was also present at the event, said.

The WiTraC system run completely on solar power and it can be mounted on poles without any effort to dig roads etc for laying wires. The system can be controlled from any remote location without need of traffic police to visit the spot.

"Existing partners who assisted us in developing technology are required to pay Rs 15 lakh for technology transfer and new partners will have to pay Rs 18.75 lakh for the same," DEITY's Group Director Debashis Dutta said.

Jaipur-based Shakti Enterprise, Delhi-based Onnyx Electronics, Gurgaon-based Envoys Electronics, Electro-Ads from Indore, Delhi Integrated Multimode Transit System, Metro Infrasys, Bharat Electronics Ltd and Keltron signed agreement for producing WiTraC.

"Only the traffic controller module when imported from abroad costs in the range of USD 10,000 to USD 12,000 (around Rs 6-7 lakh) which excludes training cost and other expenses. This (government developed) module should cost around Rs 2 lakh per controller," Envoys Electronics Managing Director Rasmeet Kohli said.