The Police Department in Andhra Pradesh is facing acute staff shortage of about 33%, across all ranks, all districts and police stations. And what makes policing even more difficult is that the personnel are continuously engaged in bandobast duty for various politicians, political rallies and meetings and major religious functions.
Keeping this in view, the city police wing is formulating a unique idea to increase the visibility and as well as shorten the response time to any incident.
In Visakhapatnam city, the total police force is around 3,600 and as per the CrPC, this force should be available 24/7, which is proving to be stressful for the personnel.
There is a severe shortage of personnel to take up the ‘beat’ duties and it is managed with great difficulty.
To tide over the issue, Police Commissioner A. Ravi Shankar has come out with the concept of ‘Partners in Policing’.
Explaining the concept he said, “It is true that I have around 3,600 personnel and it is difficult to manage such a vast city, covering 22 police stations. And that is why we are focussing on engaging a few agencies, who would partner us in policing duty.”
To begin with all the 3,600 police personnel have been given new SIM cards that are GPS enabled, which means that there whereabouts can be tracked real-time 24/7, said Mr. Ravi Shankar.
This apart, all the 1,200 Abhayam Auto drivers have been given auto-rickshaws and phones that are GPS-enabled. Just like our police personnel, the phone numbers of these auto drivers are fed in our database and they can be monitored real-time 24/7.
“Similarly, all Uber and Ola autos drivers, numbering around 6,000, have GPS-enabled phones, which are being integrated into our database. Another 2,000 Rapido bikes and APSRTC bus drivers are being given GPS-enabled SIMs, which again will be included into our database,” said the Police Commissioner.
This integration of mobile phones to the central server of the city police, will increase the visibility or reach from just 3,600 to over 12,000 in no time.
“All the phones will be mapped into our server and the moment we receive a distress call from any part of the city, all the respondents, be it the police station, police beat personnel or auto and Uber or Ola drivers, within one-km radius, will be notified from our control room, with the GPS coordinates of the place of incident or distress call. The alert will go in the form of a message, as well as a VOIP call,” said Mr. Ravi Shankar.
One can accept or reject the call, but since the number of phones mapped are high someone will. Apart for the police, the others need not intervene and put themselves in danger but reaching the spot itself in time will act as deterrence and quick response for the victim.
The others can also follow the criminal or guide the police with direction and description and also become corroboratory evidence, during investigation or trial.
According to the Police Commissioners, people who respond, including the policemen, will be suitably rewarded with both awards and recognition, and at times even with cash rewards. For policemen, it will add up as positive remarks for promotion and choice of postings. But action will be initiated against those policemen, who do not respond in time, said Mr. Ravi Shankar.
According to him, work is on fast-track and very shortly, all the numbers will be integrated into the central server of the Command Control Centre.
