Mumbai, Jun 7 (IANS): Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday dedicated All Terrain Vehicles for patrolling at Mumbai beachess to safeguard tourists and citizens, officials said here.

The state of the art ATVs can operate on land, sand, swamps or other terrain to render immediate help in case of emergencies and will be stationed initially around the beaches at Chowpatty, Juhu and others which attract hordes of locals and tourists daily.

Having a capacity of 570cc, the ATV is a fast vehicle manned by four security personnel and equipped with facilities like vehicle ropes or floating hooks to render assistance.

The 10 ATVs, donated by the Reliance Foundation, were flagged off by Thackeray in the presence of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, Ministers Dilip Walse-Patil, Aditya Thackeray, and Aslam Sheikh, Mayor Kishori Pednekar, Director General of Police Sanjay Pandey, Mumbai Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale, MP Arvind Sawant, MLA M.P. Lodha, RF's Shirin Kotwal and other officials.

Similar ATVs are used for beach patrolling by the police in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, while the Mumbai Police has other specialised vehicles for monitoring the security on the dozen-odd popular beaches dotting the west coast of the city.