In June 2019, the Union home ministry started an innovative exercise to rank the country’s best police stations. In a similar exercise that took place in 2017, when B-2 R.S. Puram police station in Coimbatore had bagged the first rank, while police stations in Hyderabad, Lucknow, and Jalpaiguri, Chennai, were among the first five.
However, this time, the exercise would be more comprehensive, as the police stations would be judged on various parameters, such as crime prevention, proactive measures adopted by the police stations to prevent economic offences, etc., and, most importantly, citizens’ perception and feedback. Forensic systems and Crime and Criminal Tracking Networks Systems (CCTNS) will also be taken into consideration during the process of evaluation. The evaluation which would be a two-stage process, involves shortlisting the police stations based on the crime data available with the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) in the first stage, while in the second stage there would be valuation on the basis of parameters mentioned above.
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The main motive behind the process is to incite competition between police stations and to improve policing. This exercise would also provide an opportunity to 115 of India’s most backward districts to improve their performance, function effectively, and evolve.
The move is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, but the attention must also be paid to the problem of lack of resources being faced by a large number of police stations throughout the country. For instance, expenditure on police accounts for a megre 3 per cent of central and state government budgets. As of January 2016, while the sanctioned police strength was 181 policemen per lakh persons, the actual strength was found to be 138 per lakh. This is in sharp contrast to the UN-recommended standard of 222 policemen per lakh persons. This manpower shortage affects the overall quality of policing, which, in turn, results in poor police-public relations.
Moreover, police forces lack modern weaponry and proper communication networks and there is a shortage of police vehicles too. In addition to these shortcomings is the fact that both the Police Telecommunication Network, used in crime investigation and transmission of crime-related data, and the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System, which is supposed to link every police station, have not yet been made operational in certain states. With the rising security challenges—from cyber crimes to terrorism—such loopholes in police infrastructure can have disastrous consequences. There is a dire need of police reforms in such a scenario.
As per the rankings list of police stations for 2018, released by the Ministry of Home Affairs in June 2019, Kalu police station in Bikaner district of Rajasthan was ranked as the best police station in the country due to its impressive performance in terms of crime prevention, investigation and disposal of cases, maintenance of law and order as well as facilities like women help desk, drinking water, and Wi-Fi. Campbell Bay police station in Nicobar district stood at the second place; as it has a child-friendly room and a separate waiting room for complainants and visitors. The Farakka police station in Murshidabad district of West Bengal was ranked third as it is equipped with air conditioners, a gym, and CCTV cameras.
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