Bangalore city police has bagged the gold award for innovative use of technology in e-governance in the implementation of B-trac project, a top police official said today.

Announcing the award, which is given out by the union Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances department, City Police Commissioner Shankar Bidari said, "It is for the first time that a police force in the country has been awarded the Gold award for innovative use of technology for e-governance".

B-trac has been implemented in Bangalore city during the years 2008-2010 with about Rs 120 crore financial support from the Karnataka government.

Bidari said that with the implementation of B-trac scheme, "Bangalore city has earned the distinction of being the most modern technology-driven traffic management system in the country". It has also earned the distincion of being the first city in the country where "traffic enforcement is 100 per cent technology-driven and paperless", he added.

By proper implementation of the B-trac project, excellent results have been achieved in traffic enforcement, traffic regulation and prevention of accidents, Bidari said.

Due to the addition of South-East division to Bangalore city in September 2007 and North-East division in May 2008, the area of the city has increased by 600 sq kms to 1,200 sq kms, he said.

During the past two years, the carriage way was taken away as a result of large scale developmental works such as metro, fly-overs, underpasses and over bridges. Inspite of these factors, the Bangalore city police have achieved unprecedented success in traffic enforcement by implementing the B-trac project, Bidari said.

The Commissioner said that despite the increase in the size of the city and the amount of vehicles on the road -- four million and counting, second only to New Delhi -- there has been a decrease in the number accidents and the number of deaths and injuries due to accidents.

The 6,483 road accidents recorded in 2010 was lower than the one recorded in 2007, when it was 8,426, he said. There has has also been a decrease in the number of deaths due to traffic accidents -- 858 in 2010 as compared to 981 in 2007.

He added the number of persons injured in traffic accidents has also come down from 6,591 in 2007 to 5,343 in 2010.

Bidari lauded the hard work put in by officers and men working in traffic branch in the past two and a half years.

"On account of their sustained efforts, Bangalore city now has the distinction of a minimum number of accidents per one lakh population or per sq.km area", he said.

The award will be presented to city police at Aurangabad on Feb 10, 2011 by the union government.