Thiruvanthampuram: A global positioning system (GPS) is soon going to be rolled out by the Kerala tourism in order to develop a safety management system for the houseboats in the state.

There will be a Geographic Information System (GIS) to track the houseboats. For the emergency situations, there will be SOS/panic buttons and to prevent route violations, the route taken by a houseboat will be geofenced.

A state government undertaking, Keltron-iTac, a vehicle tracking and fleet management solution by Keltron, will be used to track houseboats and ensure the safety of the tourists and crew. The project has been sanctioned by the government and an allocation of Rs 1.60 crore has been made for the implementation of the tracking system. The system has to be implemented within 12 months, official sources said.

"The facility will be first rolled out in 500 houseboats. The application is being updated for houseboats", SP Gopakumar, project manager of Keltron said.

A GPS mobile unit with GPRS module and internal battery will be installed in each houseboat which will provide additional power up to six hours. The installation will cost Rs 8,000.

The spatial information and the geographical coordinate data of the houseboat will be captured by the GPS module. It will send the information to the control room in Keltron's Karakulam unit via the internet.

"When the houseboat will turn beyond a particular angle, a tilt sensor will sound an alert. We are yet to decide whether a panic button would be provided to both the crew and the travelers", said V Vijeesh, project manager of Keltron.

(Inputs from agencies)(Picture Courtesy:houseboats.itsgroups.in)