The Hindu : Kerala News : Police prepare action plan for Pol-Com Action plan drawn up for Pol-Com

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 25, 2006
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Kerala

Kerala

Police prepare action plan for Pol-Com Action plan drawn up for Pol-Com

Staff Reporter

Project highlighted as a model for community policing Project highlighted as model for community policing

KOCHI: With Pol-Com (Police Communities Initiatives in Kochi city) being highlighted as a model for community policing, the police are chalking out detailed plans for expanding the project.

The project coordinates the 10-point initiatives the police have begun with different segments in society. These include residents associations, merchants, private security personnel, manpower consultancy services and school students.

"The important thing is to create goodwill among the public. This could be achieved through constant interaction between the police and the public," said K. Padmakumar, Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Ernakulam Range.

With the active participation of the stakeholders in the process of policing, it is expected that the efficiency of maintaining law and order in society could be improved. "One of the long term spin-off expected from this project is improving prosecution since people will come forward as willing witnesses," he said.

For the time being, the police are concentrating on safe implementation of Pol-Com. Those in the force are sounding confident because they could pull off a good show in the first phase.

"This is because we could convince all these segments of society that participatory policing is their need as much as ours. That was a good starting point," said P. Vijayan, City Police Commissioner.

Different committees will soon be formed to monitor the interaction between the police and these individual sections.

The scheme has provision for selecting 200-odd promoters from all these sections to coordinate this process. These persons will be selected based on their track record of social activities.

The force has already advanced its interaction with residents associations and merchant community in the city.

This, along with the presence of a high volume of floating population, gave enough space for the police to launch the scheme.

During the initial phase of Pol-Com, the police will be concentrating on private security personnel. With their number overwhelming the total police strength, Pol-Com envisages to use this workforce as an active intelligence-gathering source.

The project can generate active support from segments like manpower consultancy services.

"The goodwill generated by the initiative was so effective that other segments too have come forward to join this initiative. The association for beauticians recently extended their support in the police drive for weeding out anti-social elements operating under the guise of beauty parlours," said Mr. Vijayan.

Another key area identified for Pol-Com is the drive against those committing offences against women and children. With an active anti-harassment cell and a 24-hour helpline (9947000100) made operational, the police are all set to take on offenders.

The police are also hoping that with more members of the public being involved in the policing process, the public criticism about efficiency of the force can be reduced.

Those in the force are pointing out the issue of sand-mining as an example. While preventing sand-mining is more of a revenue issue, the police are receiving flak from the public, said a senior police official.

This attitude on the part of the public is expected to change with them playing more active role in policing.

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