Goodbye don’t come again

Goodbye don't come again

With Mysore Palace overtaking the Taj in terms of visitors, authorities are becoming jittery about security. So jittery that if you visit a tourist spot once too often, a new system will report you to the police

Frequent visits to Mysore Palace could soon land you in trouble.

The Mysore Urban Development Authority plans to put in place a new Israeli security and surveillance system which will alert police about people who visit once too often and those behaving suspiciously.

The proposal comes after Mysore Palace shot ahead of the Taj Mahal in terms of revenue generated from visitors during 2008-09. "It generated Rs 5.83 crore revenue. This is much more than that of the Taj Mahal, according to tourism officials. We are opting for the system since the number of visitors here is higher than any tourist place," said Professor M N Srihari, chairman, Mysore City Development Committee.

The system, planned under the public-private partnership model, will replace the existing metal detectors and have more than eight digital cameras costing about Rs 1 crore.u00a0"Providing security to national and international tourists is our top priority," said Shobha Karandlaje, Mysore district in-charge minister.

That's why the government has decided to spend about Rs 15 crore to upgrade security in Mysore, she said. "Especially since security is an issue every year during Dasara celebrations."

The integrated security and surveillance system will use facialu00a0 recognition technology to trace suspicious visitors to the palace, Brindavan Gardens and Chamundi Hills.

Surveillance cameras with scanning and X-ray facility will scan and store details of retina patterns, fingerprints and the face of each visitor.

Frequent visitors to one or all of the three places will be tagged and displayed in a red zone, alerting the police.

First-time visitors will be displayed in the green zone and those visiting for the second time in the yellow zone.

The system, designed initially to monitor an estimated two crore visitors every year to both Mysore Palace and KRS, and one crore visitors to Chamundi Hills, will be in place after talks with Srikantadatta Wadiyar.