: Soon, you will find traffic policemen in the city wearing video cameras which will record their moves including their behaviour with the citizens. About 20 policemen are already using the wearable video cameras on an experimental basis.
“We want people to tell us if these initiatives help them,” Telangana DGP Anurag Sharma said at a press conference on Monday. Policemen wearing video cameras also gave a feedback that it helped judge their conduct by citizens and even prevented others from making baseless allegations.
Soon, all traffic policemen would be using such cameras to make them accountable for their actions, he said. Deviating from traditional policing method of taking decisions and asking people to fall in line, the Telangana police department sought citizen’s take on their proposed reforms.
Stating that controlling crime against women was of serious concern, Mr. Sharma wanted public opinion on separate women police stations for each sub-division or special women desks at all law and order police stations. Both ideas were mooted by police officials but a final decision would be taken after getting the feedback.
Thirty-three per cent and 10 per cent reservations for women in recruitment of civil police and armed reserve police, respectively and posting civilian woman counsellor in every police station were also mooted. Deployment of armed interceptor vehicles at strategic places to catch fleeing offenders, legal advisors to each police station were the other proposals.
Reforming recruitment policy of police department, the DGP said job aspirants have to appear first for written and psychological aptitude tests to assess if they fit into the police wing followed by a physical test of different events. Presently, candidates for posts of constables and Sub-Inspectors have to clear five-kilometre run test first.
Conceding that conviction rate was abysmally low, Mr. Sharma announced plans to increase number of investigators and pay Rs. 25,000, Rs. 50,000 and Rs.75,000 as investigation charges to each police station depending on the number of cases.
People can post their suggestions, opinions and ideas on Telangana State Police facebook account or send them to dgptelangana@nic.in