Touch-screen guide for Sector V visitors

The Sector V administration has installed touch-screen machines by the roadside to help visitors find their way to offices and utilities in the tech hub.

The service will be launched after the administrative body gets its new board.

The machines, resembling ATMs, are housed in air-conditioned kiosks. Someone looking for the directions to an office will have to type its name on the touch screen, which will display its address and a map showing the way from the kiosk to there.

For example, if someone needs cash and is looking for an HDFC ATM, he has to type “HDFC ATM” on the touch screen. The machine will show the locations of the bank’s ATMs in the tech hub. Landmarks will also be displayed on the map to help the person navigate to an ATM.

Sector V does not have road names. Visitors often struggle to locate a particular place by its block and premises number.

To help them, four kiosks with a machine each have been set up near Technopolis, the SDF crossing, College More and opposite Bowler’s Den near Nicco Park.

But they remain locked in the absence of the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority board to launch the free service. The previous board had resigned several weeks ago.

“From the address of an organisation to its location and activities, the touch screens will provide all relevant information. It will also guide users to addresses with the help of a map and landmarks,” said a Nabadiganta official.

“The kiosks can be made operational only after a new board is formed. We will need seven days to appoint guards for the kiosks and install air-conditioners,” he added.

Companies in the tech hub had prompted the administrative authority to come up with the service. “Visitors at Technopolis often complain that they had to waste a lot of time just locating the building,” said an official of a company that operates out of the building.

Spread over 432 acres, Sector V houses about 250 IT and ITes companies, 48 manufacturing companies, 20 government offices, 17 banks, at least 14 ATMs and six cafes.