The Hindu : 10 p.c. fall in crime rate

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 29, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

10 p.c. fall in crime rate

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE DEC. 28. There has been a 10 per cent fall in crime rate in the State compared to last year while the rate of recovery of stolen property this year has gone up by nearly 10 per cent, the Additional Director-General of Police (Law and Order), S.V. Venkatakrishnan, said.

Talking to reporters after reviewing the performance of the police units here on Saturday, he said 25,634 incidents of crime were reported during 2002 and the number came down to 23,063 this year. There was a steep fall in the cases during the last four months. The detection rate improved from 71 per cent last year to 72.3 per cent this year.

The recovery of stolen property across the State stood at 64 per cent and with the recovery of Rs. 32.74 crores worth of property this year the rate improved by 10 per cent. With the setting up of special teams, pendancy of non-bailable warrants (NBWs) was reduced. The most-wanted criminals and those who had been at large were arrested.

Of the NBWs, 3,300 pertained to property offences and 188 persons who were at large, besides rowdy-sheeters and criminals. In Coimbatore rural district, the special teams showed significant progress in execution of the warrants and in detection and recovery, the Rural Superintendent of Police, R. Dhinakaran, said.

Highway patrolling helps

Highway patrolling helped to reduce the accident rate. Mr. Venkatakrishnan said that during 2002, the number of accidents had come down from 49,724 to 46,722 — a decline of 15 to 20 per cent. The number of deaths had come down from 9,225 to 8,200. Eighty highway patrol teams had booked 25,000 cases of overspeeding in the last few months. In a bid to encourage the teams in patrolling 3,800-km accident-prone stretch, diesel sanction was enhanced to 500 litres.

Before the close of this year, the State would have 40 women police stations and before the end of this fiscal, all 188 sub-divisions would have exclusive women police stations, he said.

All 100 police stations functioning in rented premises would have their own buildings by year-end.

Communication, training and equipment were being accorded the highest priority for modernising the force. With computerisation of police stations having taken shape, thrust was on networking them.

Mr. Venkatakrishnan said officers had been asked to step up vigil on New Year-eve to prevent revelry on the roads. Merry-makers, eve-teasers and drunken drivers would be dealt with severely, he said.

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