Additional Director General of Police (DGP) Sunil Kumar Gautam on Saturday announced a day off for the beat police. Taking a decision based on the feedback given by the beat officers requesting for a weekly off in a week, Mr. Gautam said they will provide one day off in a week for the beat officers on an experimental basis starting from Monday.
“The weekly off will be given on a rotation basis. It is required for their mental and physical wellbeing. Slowly, this system will be extended to the higher police officers as well,” he said.
Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi said that this will not hamper the functioning of the present system. More efforts would be put to ensure crime prevention.
She was speaking at a function organised to reward the best beat police officers, Station House Officers (SHO) and Sub-Divisional Police Officers (SDPOs) on Saturday in Puducherry.
In their feedback, the beat officers had asked for modernisation of the police force and less interference from the politicians. They wanted cyber cells, call tracking and CCTV cameras to be set up. They wanted the vacancies to be filled and given more vehicles for better execution of their duties. To which, she replied: “The DGP will work towards modernisation. Funds allotted by the Central government will be put to good use. As regards filling of vacancies and addition of vehicles, it will all be part of the modernisation process. Setting up of a cyber cell is in the offing. Police personnel will be trained to handle it.”
The Lieutenant Governor added that the beat officers should convince the resident welfare associations and merchants’ associations to install CCTV cameras. She stressed that no interference in support of injustice will be encouraged. “Politicians can make a request in support of justice. But, anything against it will not be allowed,” she said.
Ms. Bedi said that auto drivers and bus drivers can be co-opted as informants. She praised the police department for using WhatsApp effectively and made the police promise that they will not allow any organised crime in Puducherry. “There should be zero gambling, prostitution, extortion,” she said. She underlined the police department will design a training programme for officers in computer, cyber crime investigation, scientific collection of evidence, bomb squad and commando training. They will be helped to manage stress through yoga and physical exercises.
