Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat asked the State Home and Police Department officials to introduce a ranking system in the police department so as to give ranking to the police stations as per their performance while taking a review meeting of the Home and Police Departments in Dehradun on Saturday.
The police station which receives the highest ranking on the basis of the annual assessment would be rewarded with a cash award of Rs 1 lakh. With tension brewing in the Sino-Indian border areas within the State,the CM asked the police heads of the districts sharing international borders to further better coordination with ITBP, SSP and the Army. Besides, he stressed on online registration of FIRs while urging police to adequately prepare themselves to take on the cyber crimes which have turned to be the biggest challenge for police in the present time.
The CM also asked the police department to conduct regular drives along with the transport department to stop the unauthorised vehicles, plying in the remote areas of the State, from putting the people to the risks of accidents. While expressing satisfaction over the road accident figure having come down a bit as compared to the last year, he said that there was no place for self-complacency. They must be more alert than earlier, he said.
While referring to the recent communal flare-ups at Satpuli in Pauri district, he sounded unhappy over police role, saying that they must be more vigilant and active to thwart any attempt to breach the communal peace.
Expressing serious concern over the drug mafias operating in the State, CM said that police figure of 583 people being arrested on the charges of drug peddling and contrabands worth around Rs 5.25 crore being recovered over the past six months was alarming.
He also asked the police department to fill 235 vacant posts for the drivers in the department and 400 vacant posts in the state disaster response force (SDRF) in the next three years, phase by phase. He asked principal secretary finance Radha Raturi to meet the police department officials to sort out the matter.
He also instructed principal secretary home Dr Umakant Panwar to meet the finance department officials to clear decks for the recruitment for the new police posts, approved earlier in principle. Notably, the State police department had proposed 13 new police stations and 34 reporting police posts across the State and demanded expansion of the jurisdictional limits of the existing police stations to better the quality of policing.
As the police department officials asked the CM to consider their demand for constructing buildings for Indian Reserve Battalion-II (IRB) and SDRF, CM gave the in-principle approval and instructed the finance and home department officials to take initiatives to release the first- phase budget. He also assured that the crunch of vehicles adversely impacting police works would be sorted out soon.
During the meeting, the police officials apprised the CM of the fact that the performance of the State police is better than the national average in terms of the number of cases being solved. They said that they had cracked 100 per cent of the dacoity cases while the figures were 84 per cent for looting cases, 54 per cent for theft cases and 99 per cent for rape cases.
However, regarding the murder cases, the State police have solved 83 per cent of such cases which is a little less than the national average which is 86.2 per cent. CM asked them to further improve their performance while exhorting them to go all-out to stop rape cases and to arrest the accused immediately once a rape is committed. He made it clear that he would not brook excuse regarding crimes. He stressed on the department to act in coordination with all other departments to solve the registered cases and to check crimes in the coming days.
DGP Anil K Raturi said that in 2017 so far, police have recovered 45 per cent of the stolen items while the national average on this matter is standing at 16.4 per cent. He claimed that Uttarakhand figures fifth among the States in the matter of recovery of the stolen items.
He also flaunted the figure of the State police achieving 65 per cent conviction through the courts regarding crimes while the national average is 46.9 per cent and the State is figuring sixth among the States. He also referred to the success STF and Dehradun police have achieved in arresting the criminals engaged in 95 ATM cloning cases and in freezing Rs 35 lakh in the bank accounts of the culprits with around Rs 17 lakh being recovered so far.
The success achieved under the Operation Smile was also mentioned as the state police brass claimed have recovered 331 children during its latest chapter. Besides, the fact of the special investigation teams (SIT) having solved 774 complaints so far figured during the meeting.