Cops get etiquette lessons for visitor-friendly police stations

SESSION STARTS Officers asked to give time to visitors, listen to them, try to solve problems quickly

In an effort to ensure that every resident is greeted by polite policmen at police stations, the Navi Mumbai police have started training sessions for their personnel.

The first session was held at the police commissioner’s office at Belapur on Tuesday.

Navi Mumbai police commissioner Prabhat Ranjan earlier told Hindustan Times that to improve the service delivery system, they roped in two agencies, which conducted a survey in all police stations in the city. The agency people visited the police stations as common citizen to get a firsthand experience.

“None of our officials asked for bribe when these people went to the police stations to file an FIR or make some enquiries. However, there were enough scopes to improve the system. According to the agency reports, our officers send people from one police station to another, which is unnecessary at times. Therefore after getting the repots from both the agencies, we have started the training sessions for our officers,” Ranjan said.

“Now-a-days everyone is busy and people don’t have time to visit a police station again and again for a small work. Therefore, we have asked our officials to give required time to the visitors, listen to them properly and try to solve their problems as soon as possible. The officials holding charge of the station (thane amaldars) play a crucial role in this regard. So we are training the senior as well as the junior officers,” he added.

Prashant Kheire, deputy commissioner of police (headquarters) said, “The police department is fully responsible for maintaining the law and order situation and detecting and preventing crimes. So the residents should have faith in us and that is not possible without good communication.”

“We have been holding meeting with the residents at different places for the past several months. Now by training our officials to receive people professionally we want to create a better understanding between the residents and our officials,” he added.

The police have also started putting feedback box at the police stations. If anyone has any complaint against any police official, he or she can write about it and put the letter in the box. One feedback box has been put at Vashi police station too.

Ranjan said, “We are also planning to form a centralized team who will call the visitors or vice versa to know their reaction. It will make the entire system more transparent.”

The residents have welcomed this move. Prashant Shinde, 40, a resident of Nerul said, “We think the new system will bring a change to the system, if the rules are followed. It may transform the police from ‘men in uniform’ to ‘friends in uniform,” he said.