The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Blue Colts, SPOs prove effective Law & order

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Saturday, Jan 12, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Blue Colts, SPOs prove effective Law & order

They are more helpful in detection of crime than checking of vehicles and frisking, writes Marri Ramu

Instead of implementing individual decisions, developing systems proved to be more effective in the maintenance of law and order. The recently introduced Special Police Officers (SPOs) and secret camera surveillance systems in the State capital have once again vindicated this theory.

From severe staff shortage to serious security threat to public places, the city police had been facing several challenges. Different new solutions were suggested for mitigating the problems from time to time by the police bosses.

Criticism

Among these innovations, interestingly, development of systems like Blue Colts and SPOs have proved to be more helpful in prevention and detection of crime rather than decisions like checking vehicles and frisking commuters at the city’s entry points.

Till Blue Colts and Rakshak mobile parties were introduced, there was a lot of criticism about the poor response time of the police.

Despite the shortcomings like limited fuel allocation for patrol vehicles, these two teams proved to be successful in attending to emergency situations.

Even the concept of sub-control rooms in each police station area where a Sub-Inspector and three constables would be available for receiving complaints received good response. For reasons best known to the officials, the system was done away with.

Wasteful exercise

But not all concepts were useful to the people. A year ago, the police introduced checking of vehicles and frisking commuters at all entry and exit points of the city in the name of controlling crime. Barricades were kept on the roads and details of all the vehicles passing through were noted. With no fruitful results, this massive exercise proved to be a waste of whatever scanty manpower was available. Eventually, the system was dropped.

The concept of SPOs was introduced in the backdrop of the Government’s reluctance to sanction more posts due to financial restraints.

The recruitment of ex-servicemen, who had the advantage of familiarity with security systems, as SPOs - each with a consolidated pay of Rs. 7,500 a month - helped the Police Department face the challenge of limited manpower.

Burden reduced

With these SPOs being used specifically for anti-sabotage check, inspection of vehicles and frisking of commuters, the burden on policemen was reduced considerably.

The camera surveillance system, introduced on experimental basis, has provided crucial evidence in the form of video footage in a few cases.

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