As per the directives by Rajnath Singh, the Ministry of Home Affairs has decided to allocate specific funds for setting up of SMART police stations in each state shortly and will work towards the founding of more SMART police stations during the next financial year.
A concept of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, SMART police stations (S-Sensitive and Strict; M-Modern with mobility; A- Alert and Accountable; R- Reliable and Responsive; T- Trained and Techno-savvy) will seek to be also the primary point of interaction between citizens and the police.
Among the suggested features of a SMART police station are basic amenities for visitors, including a waiting area, toilets and drinking water; rest room for constables, including separate room for women constables; natural lighting and ventilation, CCTV, record room, communication room for wireless, computers, and so on; and automated kiosks for filing of complaints by the public
While the concept of SMART is certainly smart but is thinking on correct track? Most of components suggested are of a "model" police station rather than "smart". First as has been common with all indian schemes ( for schools, roads, tourism) its main focus seems to be hard infrastrucutre. Nothing wrong with it but what private firms call "non linear" growth should be the paradigm here.
A typical refrain one often hears is we are so and so number short of policemen. Basis? Data from developed nations. What is assumed here is that we have similar crime patterns, geogrpahical distribution of population & more importantly same efficiency of police forcce both on individual as well as unit level (i.e. police station) as developed nations which is not supported by any research whatsoever.
Sensitive & strict should mean that each complaint should be looked into;and people not shooed away & strict means once it is established that crime has taken place, police should be relentless in pursuing criminals & seeing to it that they meet justice. In USA it is not uncommon to hear about reversal of homicide or rape convictions done years ago after new forensic methods like DNA have come into vogue. In Indian police stations once the chargesheet is filed or culprits arrested very little attention is paid to witness protection or good upkeep of record.
Waiting room with basic amenities for visitors is good idea but what happens to their small complaints? Lets go back to Muzzafarnagar riots. Starting point was eve teasing of a girl who complained to her brothers about it who took matter in their hand. Why did the girl or her brothers did not feel that they should go to local police first? A sensitive police would mean first point of contact should be trained in listening to complainant.A transparent & time bound escalation mechanism where CO,SPP, DIG, IG are easily accesible using technology and not in "darbar" fashion which is in vogue nowadyas will ensure sensitive policing.
Often a poor person comes with little land where he has dispute with some neighbour or relative. Instead of washing hands by saying its civil matter, a sensitive police officer would connect him to free legal aid cell of district or probation officer so that he can initiate civil proceedings. Marital disputes likewise should be referred to NGOs working in the domain.A biweekly meeting of relevant functionaries of district & local administration with police will go in long way in making dispensation of justice sensitive than "marking" of complaints from one office to other
It is also necessary that an apparatus for prosecution is created parallel to police apparatus i.e. police station, circle, district & range level. As one of my seniors used to say to make sure a criminal meets his creator five links in criminal justice chain should remain intact i.e. complainant, witness, Investigating officer or IO, public prosecuotr & Judge. A criminal needs to manage just one of five elements i.e. either scare away witness, bribe any of above five, public prosecutor may lose interest with time or complainant go weary i.e. why each SMART police station should have a wing looking after prosecution.
M stands for Modern with mobility. It will be instructive to see fuel allocations for police station jeeps in North Indian states. An SHO is almost always expected to manage almost everything.A time and motion studies of activities being done at a Police station both in terms of man hours as well physical resources like fuel, stationery, power, bandwidth is must. Especially in rural area where distances are large & its not advisable to go alone or on two wheeler, an SHO has to come twice or thrice to district HQ for meetings. Sometimes SHO spends full day just to get a remand from court or submit some document. Why? Video confrencing is exclusive preserve of higher officials & conference call on telelphone or computer so common in multinational companies working across geographies are taboo in Indian babudom.
Mobility should not merely mean buying vehicles with higer horse power or RPM but it should also mean improving response time. After getting a complaint on phone or from control room how many minutes it takes to scramble the response team? How much time it takes to reach spot? Unless these KRAs are introduced we will end up buying vehicles & gadgets only.
A stands for alert & accountable. Right now YoY crime figures, time taken to investigate a case or chargesheet filed & no of cases succesfully traced are broad parameters on which Police brass is measured. Recently Delhi police went for free FIR & there is a famous "jalpaiguri" experiment in record books.It would be interesting to note roughly 1/3rd of FIRs today are registered on direction of court.Imagine a poor person from village has to hire a lawyer, go to a city court two-three times just to get a complaint registered!! This needs to be stopped.
Complainant can always be informed via sms of the progress of his/her case & similarly witnesses of date of their deposition. By suitable changes in law & taking judiciary on board statements of witnesses can be recorded even before filing of chargesheet as later they might turn hostile or it may be cumbersome for them to depose. Imagine a road accident on noida expressway or a theft in a train, a witness if assured that he/she will not be troubled after few months or years to go to that place & depose will be willing to tell what has transpired. As things are today there is no such assurance so finding a witness is biggest concern for police.
Accountable should also mean that how many chargesheets are resulting in conviction. This is crucial as this is dependent on quality of investigation, right procedure being followed, chain of custody being maintained, timely & correct fornesic tests being conducted. But a tortoise paced judicial system of India means that it is next to impossible to evaluate an officer on this parameter as many of cases investigated by him will not go to hearing itself for a year or two & final judgmenet may well take 5-6 years.
R stands for reliable & responsive. How many times one has called 100 number & found a busy tone. Do all control rooms have phones with caller ID so that they can call back if a caller is not able to contiue the call due to distress? Are ambulance avaialble at call or paramedics available at control room?Is it guaranteed that there will always be a doctor at hospital to treat a victim of accident or a magistrate to give custoady of minor offendor or expelled woman to right government instiutions.Is there incident registering & monitoring sytem where any transgression from ideal is being captured, documented & analysed periodically with corrective action being taken. This & especially availability of magistrate is a reason why hold out states (MP,UP & Bihar) should also adopt commissionarate system to improve responsiveness of system.
T stands for trained & tech savy.Have we defined like private sector minimum number of days each policeman/woman should undergo training every year? Whatever training constabulary receives is on initiative of a senior officer who may not be there always.Every few years there is no audit of future requirments of skill sets & training of current forces accordingly.This is not to suggest it does not happen but it is neither insitutionalised nor strucutured.
To sum it all after a long time we have a government which is not afraid to tread a new path.But are we sure we are treading a new path or just going in circles.
If SMART police station is only about hard infrastructure without process efficieny or business process reengineering it may not yield its full potential.
In passing it would be great if states resist temptation of setting up model PS in capital cities or urban areas.It would be wonderful if MP has SMART police station in Bhind or Murena, UP in Badayun or Tamilnadu in caste war infested Ramnad.
A concept of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, SMART police stations (S-Sensitive and Strict; M-Modern with mobility; A- Alert and Accountable; R- Reliable and Responsive; T- Trained and Techno-savvy) will seek to be also the primary point of interaction between citizens and the police.
Among the suggested features of a SMART police station are basic amenities for visitors, including a waiting area, toilets and drinking water; rest room for constables, including separate room for women constables; natural lighting and ventilation, CCTV, record room, communication room for wireless, computers, and so on; and automated kiosks for filing of complaints by the public
While the concept of SMART is certainly smart but is thinking on correct track? Most of components suggested are of a "model" police station rather than "smart". First as has been common with all indian schemes ( for schools, roads, tourism) its main focus seems to be hard infrastrucutre. Nothing wrong with it but what private firms call "non linear" growth should be the paradigm here.
A typical refrain one often hears is we are so and so number short of policemen. Basis? Data from developed nations. What is assumed here is that we have similar crime patterns, geogrpahical distribution of population & more importantly same efficiency of police forcce both on individual as well as unit level (i.e. police station) as developed nations which is not supported by any research whatsoever.
Sensitive & strict should mean that each complaint should be looked into;and people not shooed away & strict means once it is established that crime has taken place, police should be relentless in pursuing criminals & seeing to it that they meet justice. In USA it is not uncommon to hear about reversal of homicide or rape convictions done years ago after new forensic methods like DNA have come into vogue. In Indian police stations once the chargesheet is filed or culprits arrested very little attention is paid to witness protection or good upkeep of record.
Waiting room with basic amenities for visitors is good idea but what happens to their small complaints? Lets go back to Muzzafarnagar riots. Starting point was eve teasing of a girl who complained to her brothers about it who took matter in their hand. Why did the girl or her brothers did not feel that they should go to local police first? A sensitive police would mean first point of contact should be trained in listening to complainant.A transparent & time bound escalation mechanism where CO,SPP, DIG, IG are easily accesible using technology and not in "darbar" fashion which is in vogue nowadyas will ensure sensitive policing.
Often a poor person comes with little land where he has dispute with some neighbour or relative. Instead of washing hands by saying its civil matter, a sensitive police officer would connect him to free legal aid cell of district or probation officer so that he can initiate civil proceedings. Marital disputes likewise should be referred to NGOs working in the domain.A biweekly meeting of relevant functionaries of district & local administration with police will go in long way in making dispensation of justice sensitive than "marking" of complaints from one office to other
It is also necessary that an apparatus for prosecution is created parallel to police apparatus i.e. police station, circle, district & range level. As one of my seniors used to say to make sure a criminal meets his creator five links in criminal justice chain should remain intact i.e. complainant, witness, Investigating officer or IO, public prosecuotr & Judge. A criminal needs to manage just one of five elements i.e. either scare away witness, bribe any of above five, public prosecutor may lose interest with time or complainant go weary i.e. why each SMART police station should have a wing looking after prosecution.
M stands for Modern with mobility. It will be instructive to see fuel allocations for police station jeeps in North Indian states. An SHO is almost always expected to manage almost everything.A time and motion studies of activities being done at a Police station both in terms of man hours as well physical resources like fuel, stationery, power, bandwidth is must. Especially in rural area where distances are large & its not advisable to go alone or on two wheeler, an SHO has to come twice or thrice to district HQ for meetings. Sometimes SHO spends full day just to get a remand from court or submit some document. Why? Video confrencing is exclusive preserve of higher officials & conference call on telelphone or computer so common in multinational companies working across geographies are taboo in Indian babudom.
Mobility should not merely mean buying vehicles with higer horse power or RPM but it should also mean improving response time. After getting a complaint on phone or from control room how many minutes it takes to scramble the response team? How much time it takes to reach spot? Unless these KRAs are introduced we will end up buying vehicles & gadgets only.
A stands for alert & accountable. Right now YoY crime figures, time taken to investigate a case or chargesheet filed & no of cases succesfully traced are broad parameters on which Police brass is measured. Recently Delhi police went for free FIR & there is a famous "jalpaiguri" experiment in record books.It would be interesting to note roughly 1/3rd of FIRs today are registered on direction of court.Imagine a poor person from village has to hire a lawyer, go to a city court two-three times just to get a complaint registered!! This needs to be stopped.
Complainant can always be informed via sms of the progress of his/her case & similarly witnesses of date of their deposition. By suitable changes in law & taking judiciary on board statements of witnesses can be recorded even before filing of chargesheet as later they might turn hostile or it may be cumbersome for them to depose. Imagine a road accident on noida expressway or a theft in a train, a witness if assured that he/she will not be troubled after few months or years to go to that place & depose will be willing to tell what has transpired. As things are today there is no such assurance so finding a witness is biggest concern for police.
Accountable should also mean that how many chargesheets are resulting in conviction. This is crucial as this is dependent on quality of investigation, right procedure being followed, chain of custody being maintained, timely & correct fornesic tests being conducted. But a tortoise paced judicial system of India means that it is next to impossible to evaluate an officer on this parameter as many of cases investigated by him will not go to hearing itself for a year or two & final judgmenet may well take 5-6 years.
R stands for reliable & responsive. How many times one has called 100 number & found a busy tone. Do all control rooms have phones with caller ID so that they can call back if a caller is not able to contiue the call due to distress? Are ambulance avaialble at call or paramedics available at control room?Is it guaranteed that there will always be a doctor at hospital to treat a victim of accident or a magistrate to give custoady of minor offendor or expelled woman to right government instiutions.Is there incident registering & monitoring sytem where any transgression from ideal is being captured, documented & analysed periodically with corrective action being taken. This & especially availability of magistrate is a reason why hold out states (MP,UP & Bihar) should also adopt commissionarate system to improve responsiveness of system.
T stands for trained & tech savy.Have we defined like private sector minimum number of days each policeman/woman should undergo training every year? Whatever training constabulary receives is on initiative of a senior officer who may not be there always.Every few years there is no audit of future requirments of skill sets & training of current forces accordingly.This is not to suggest it does not happen but it is neither insitutionalised nor strucutured.
To sum it all after a long time we have a government which is not afraid to tread a new path.But are we sure we are treading a new path or just going in circles.
If SMART police station is only about hard infrastructure without process efficieny or business process reengineering it may not yield its full potential.
In passing it would be great if states resist temptation of setting up model PS in capital cities or urban areas.It would be wonderful if MP has SMART police station in Bhind or Murena, UP in Badayun or Tamilnadu in caste war infested Ramnad.
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