Chennai, Feb 9 (IANS): The police personnel of Avadi commissionerate near Chennai will be using bicycles as a mode of patrolling to provide the public easy and approachable access to the police.

"The bicycle patrolling was part of the exercise to show the presence of police officials in remote and less covered areas in the commissionerate," Avadi Commissioner Sandip Roy Rathore told IANS.

"With this, the police are planning to collaborate with the residents and interact with them to know about their needs," he said.

"As a first step, the commissionerate has distributed 100 bicycles to 25 police stations under its jurisdiction. The cops will sit with the residents and understand their issues and try to sort them out," the police officer said.

The police told IANS that bicycle patrolling is for gathering grass-root intelligence and information would be collected from the youngsters after befriending them.

Rathore said that if the bicycle patrolling turns out to be a success, the police would extend this to other commissionerates as well, including the Chennai corporation.