Pune: Transport minister Pratap Sarnaik on Tuesday described his department’s command and control centre as “bogus”, exposing lapses in a system meant to protect public transport commuters in distress.Admitting that panic buttons were non-functional in several vehicles and the facility existed largely on paper, Sarnaik said he had directed the transport commissioner’s office to overhaul the system without delay.“I am the transport minister, but still I am saying the system is bogus. Some people are manning the centre, but its infrastructure is missing. I visited the facility a couple of times but saw no improvement,” Sarnaik told TOI.The command and control centre was set up in 2020 to assist passengers, particularly women, travelling in buses and cabs. Multiple complaints about panic buttons failing to trigger a response raised questions about its effectiveness. State transport commissioner Rajesh Narvekar said a meeting was scheduled this week to examine the gaps.About a month ago, a Pimpri resident pressed the panic button in a cab after she felt uncomfortable with the driver’s behaviour. “The driver laughed and said it did not work. Why install these showpiece buttons if they serve no purpose?” she said.Most cab drivers echoed her and said the system offered little protection to cabbies or commuters. Cabby Arvind Jadhav recalled how two drunk passengers shouted and one of them attempted to grab the steering wheel after boarding his cab from a nightclub on Mundhwa Road.“I stopped the car and pressed the panic button, but nothing happened. Fortunately, I was near Koregaon Park, where police personnel were on night patrol. They intervened,” he said.The command centre should receive an alert if anyone presses the panic button in a vehicle. The centre should immediately track it, identify its owner, assess the situation and contact the police emergency number, 112.Transport commissioner Narvekar said, “The system has several shortcomings. Often the vehicle owner contacted by the centre is not the person driving it. An earlier attempt to integrate the system with the police helpline failed, reportedly because of manpower constraints. It will take two to three weeks to put a proper system in place. We will then send a proposal to state govt for approval before implementing it.”Another transport department official said the revamp would be challenging because the authorities did not have an accurate count of vehicles fitted with panic buttons. Officials plan to approach police again to explore the possibility of integration.Minister Sarnaik said, “In my view, panic buttons should be fully functional and present in all forms of public transport, including autorickshaws. We will write to the Centre to allow the govt to do the same.”Hadapsar’s Priyanka Katar, a working professional, said, “Panic buttons were made mandatory for all public transport vehicles after the Nirbhaya incident. It is sad that the system doesn’t work in the state at all.”Keshav Kshirsagar, president of Indian Gig Workers’ Front, said aggregator companies started installing panic buttons in vehicles after 2020. Drivers of older cabs purchased them from RTO-approved vendors.“The devices have SIM cards. These allow the Mumbai-based centre to track vehicles. But the system is flawed. We have been asking the department to fix it for a long time,” he said.Working professional Sishir Panji from Kothrud said, “If the system has been in place since 2020, why isn’t it functional? This smells of a scam in which a lot of money was spent for nothing.”
