The Department of Police has drawn up a detailed plan to involve public in the maintenance of law and order in the district.
Ravi D. Channannanavar, Superintendent of Police, told The Hindu that community policing committees would be formed at all the 35 wards here. Each committee would have at least 20 citizens belonging to the respective ward.
Members of the committee would be trained in issues related to maintenance of law and order, prevention and detection of crime, civic sense and the evils of gambling and drug addiction. The committee would meet once in a month in which, a jurisdictional police official would participate. Citizens could bring to the notice of police personnel any problems related to law and order situation in their jurisdiction, including traffic problems, instances of eve-teasing, gambling and other illegal activities. The official attending such meetings would be responsible for addressing the problems, he said.
A police outpost each would be set up in all the wards. It was also being contemplated to involve committee members in the night beats. The community policing would serve twin objectives of bringing down the crime rate and establishing a friendly relationship between the officials and the common people. The process for forming the ward-level committees would commence soon. In the coming days, the department was keen to set up such committees in rural areas also, he said.
Initially, the department would involve the citizens in traffic management. Similar training had been provided to 17 members of the Namma Kanasina Shivamogga, Redcross Society and other organisations on traffic laws. They would function as traffic wardens. The department would provide uniforms to traffic wardens. Besides traffic controlling, the committee members would be made to participate in awareness programmes, proposed to be held in educational institutions, on traffic rules. The traffic wardens would start functioning from May 1, he said.0- In the wake of a rise in the number of cases of atrocity on women, the department would motivate the social organisations to conduct camps to impart training for women in self-defence techniques and on how to handle different weapons. The student-police cadet project, under which training in basic policing would be provided for students, would be launched from the coming academic year, he said.
‘Each panel will have at least 20 members from respective wards’
Committee members will initially be involved in traffic control duties
