Rahimatpur police station in Satara district in western Maharashtra has emerged as the State topper in a survey based on the ‘SMART’ policing concept announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Mr. Modi had first called for making the police force ‘SMART’ — strict and sensitive, modern and mobile, alert and accountable, reliable and responsive, techno-savvy and trained — while addressing the 49th annual conference of Directors-General and Inspectors-General of Police in Guwahati in 2014.
The Quality Council of India (QCI), which executed the survey, assessed 87 shortlisted police stations across the country on a number of parameters like performance in controlling crime, infrastructure of the police building, mess and optimal use of technology, and citizen feedback.
The other vital parameters included approachability and discipline of the police personnel, storage of manual records in the police station as well as the station head officer’s (SHO’s) declaration of the budgetary process.
However, the State’s performance was disappointing as none of its three shortlisted stations failed to make the top 10.
Two other police stations besides Rahimatpur, including Akot Rural police station in Akola district and Talwada in Beed district, were included in the rankings, being placed at 59 and 60 respectively.
The Kalu police station in Rajasthan’s Bikaner came first rank in the country for having recreational facilities for police personnel, and a helpdesk for women besides being equipped with wi-fi servers.
“Credit must be given for completion of the ISO process of the shortlisted stations in Maharashtra. In fact, the quality standardisation process started in full swing in Satara and other districts like Kolhapur and Aurangabad in 2017,” Tejaswi Satpute, Satara Superintendent of Police, told The Hindu .
Ms. Satpute said that as against the rest of the State, police stations in Satara district had commenced their ISO processes relatively earlier.
“While the survey in no way implies that bigger police stations in Mumbai, for instance, are not superior in other parameters, the chief criterion chosen for the rankings this time was the data on the Wipro-developed Crime and Criminal Tracking Network system (CCTNS) portal,” she said.
It was on the basis of cent per cent upgradation of the CCTNS system that Rahimatpur, already an ISO station, made it as State topper, Ms. Satpute said, adding that the reason for choosing this particular criteria was to encourage other stations to update data faster.
In February this year, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had declared Satara as a ‘SMART’ police district adding 37 police stations in the district qualified as ‘SMART’ stations.
Fourteen police stations were placed in the A++ category, 12 in the A+, and the remaining 11 in A category as per the SMART policing concept norms.
