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The information that has been displayed in the maps were of districts, parliaments, assembly, first phase and second phase, spill over assembly, village, polling stations ( plate 8 ), mobile party routes, striking force, special striking force, helipad, village sensitivity information, pre and post poll incidents and there location, and shortest route between two places.

Finding the shortest route is a different module that has been used here to find out the shortest distance between two locations. This not only shows the way in the spatial format but also gives the direction how to proceed to the target. The different villages that come in the way, polling stations, the direction, weather it’s a highway, district road or a cart-track, and the distance to the target and between each stop. Because of this it will be easy for the police force to get to the incident much faster, saving a lot of time and even handling the situation on time. most of the force that will be deployed at the time of election bondobust is not from the state, or more precisely to say not form the place where they have to work. So they may not know the places very well to go on their own. At this moment the shortest route map will help them very much in reaching the target without the help of other persons.

Results and Discussion
Once the software was ready for the use it was a greater relief for the Andhra Pradesh Police, but a point of doubt weather this software will be up to the expectations they have made. But Geographical Information System had made their doubt clear. The maps which were generated were showing the database information in spatial format, which they were seeing all these years in a text format. These maps gave them a spatial view of the entire area which made them easy to understand and to give accurate decisions in planning and deploying the force for election bondobust.

The map showed them the districts that come in the two Phases and the spillovers. The maps then displayed the polling station information, like the polling station location, its number, Incharge name, telephone number, weather its armed or not, the force strength, number of voters who will cast there vote in the station. So sitting at one place, may be at district head quarters viewing the districts information or at the capital viewing the whole state at a time, they got the information at a click of the mouse.

The Andhra Pradesh Police were keen on knowing how there force information will be displayed. It came to a mere shock to them by seeing the entire information of the state right in front of them. They could see the mobile party information. The Incharge name, telephone number ( land line ), mobile number, the polling stations it will be covering, the force strength it has, it also has the information of to which striking and special striking force it belongs to. More than this they could see the route in which the mobile party would travel at the time of election and also see the polling station they cover.

When ever an incident took place within no time the information regarding the incident has been traced, the village and the polling station, in the map and they could find out who is the Incharge person to be contacted. If the incident is a major one and the force is not sufficient with the mobile party the Superintendent of Police has found out who is the nearest mobile party or the striking or the special striking force from that incident that can reach the place faster and ordered them to take control over the situation. This has been done through the module of finding the shortest route. It has also given them the information regarding the nearest force which is present around the incident place, along with the distance ( Plate 9 ). To handle all this and to take decision they were surprised to see that they did not even take five minutes and the situation has been taken into control before any further damage was caused to the life or property.

Andhra Pradesh Police was much satisfied in using the software which made them to control incidents which have been decreased to nearly fifty percent when compared to previous elections. More than in the first phase they have used this extensively in the second phase, which has given them a good result in controlling the situation and protecting and giving a lot of safety for the voters.

Looking back to the previous elections The Andhra Pradesh Police has shown a great relief and satisfaction in giving more safety to the voter’s. They have very well controlled the situation by themselves, but by identifying the incident place and making decisions very fast, much lesser time than they were taking in the traditional way, and controlling the situation on time definitely they pointed out to Geographical Information System.

Conclusion
GIS has made it possible to overcome the problems faced in the traditional bondobust. It has reduced the time in searching a location and finding out the information drastically from 15 to 30 minutes to hardly 5 minutes or less than that. The decision making has become very fast and the situations have been controlled on time, not making a lot of damage to the life of voters or the property of election. Andhra Pradesh Police, who were in need of a solution for ensuring voter’s safety in the election bondobust, made it successful by using the facilities of Geographical Information System.

Note : The maps shown here are of only one district – Nalgonda district.

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