Chennai constables, who had seemingly discarded bicycles a long time ago, were on Thursday ordered to hop onto these contraptions and pedal around to patrol and prevent crime.

Chief minister J Jayalalithaa flagged off a battalion of 250 bicycle borne constables and 100 on motorcycles as part of an exercise to ensure that the constables reach the crime spots quickly – navigating through the narrow and crowded lanes and bylanes.

This is of course, not the first time that Tamil Nadu has experimented with cycles. Sporadically, cycles as patrolling vehicles have been tried out in Chennai and other cities. In Coimbatore in 2007, experimented with patrolling on cycles, after 50 cycles were given to constables and ACPs – but there is little evidence of them being in use, many Coimbatoreans say.

But then, the experiment never dies down.

Every once in a while, the cycles come out, like on Thursday when Jayalalithaa flagged off constables riding 250 cycles. There were 100 motorcycle-borne cops too in the patrolling party. They have also been given e-challan machines for spot fining traffic violators.

These patrol officers would be required to develop local intelligence as well as maintain rapport with local communities where they serve, for getting seamless information about the happenings in the area and to keep tabs on any suspicious activities.