City police developing app to collect details of PG tenants: Bengaluru top cop

Bengaluru police are working towards designing a mobile phone app to collect details of paying guests, city top cop B Dayananda said on Saturday. “We are actively working towards setting up an app to know about the tenants in PGs so that no problems arise,” he said. “It may likely be implemented in the coming days.” 

He was responding to a query by a resident of southeastern Bengaluru during the monthly Masika Jana Samparka Divasa. 

Elaborating on the plan, the commissioner told DH: “Some states have already done it. We want to study that model and if it suits us, we can adopt it.” 

B Dayananda. 

A senior police officer said that the plan was in the pipeline where the police would have a database with the PG operators on board. 

“It will be made a mandatory thing to share the details the operators collect through the software,” C K Baba, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast), told this newspaper. “There are several PGs in the southeast division. This division has many renowned educational institutes and tech parks, and hence a lot of people from outside the state also stay here.” 

Baba said that the database would help prevent crimes and ensure that people from other states had a safe stay. “PGs, as of now, are largely an unorganised sector, and the plan requires a minimum set of things from the operators: computer infrastructure, basic cameras, CCTVs and there has to be someone to feed in the data. As of now, the plan is in a nascent stage.” 

Drugs, cybercrime and traffic

At the jam-packed St John’s Auditorium in Koramangala, issues of cybercrime, drug consumption, and traffic took precedence. Dayananda urged people to not be “mesmerised by fraudsters” and said the first defence against cybercrime was common sense. He asked people to contact the police immediately by dialling 1930. 

On the drug menace, he said that the whole of society has to work towards raising awareness. “The public can inform us. We will keep their identity a secret.” 

Dayananda also directed the traffic police present during the interaction to resolve specific issues raised by the residents.