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As part of efforts to tone up the law and order scenario and make the police more easily accessible to the common man, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has decided that all major cities in the state will soon have a police help line service.
The service will ensure prompt response to all kinds of complaints about crime.
Mayawati has fixed a two-month deadline to the police to ensure a visible improvement in the state's law and order situation.
Apart from replacing the state police chief, the chief minister has also prescribed a framework for periodical monitoring of the crime situation.
For operation convenience, she has divided the state into three parts. The state police chief is to personally review the crime scenario in each part at regular intervals.
Zonal Inspectors General of Police (IGPs) together with their subordinate officers right up to the level of Circle Inspectors are to participate in these review meetings.
According to Mayawati's directives, the review of Allahabad, Gorakhpur and Varanasi zones would be held in Allahabad on the 2nd of every month, Kanpur and Lucknow zones in Kanpur on the 4th of every month and that of Bareilly and Meerut zones in Moradabad on the 6th of every month.
This way, Mayawati hoped Director General of Police R M Shukla would be able to keep track of the ground situation in the state.
Shukla's predecessor R K Pandit's "problem was that he never cared to have a feel of the ground realities by visiting different parts of the state, not even the state capital Lucknow," Mayawati has said.
However, the chief minister has made it clear that all officers going to attend the monthly review meetings will have to formally hand over charge to a responsible officer, so that responsibility could be fixed in case of any untoward event.
Meanwhile, Chief Secretary D S Bagga held a meeting and told top home department and police officials to ensure that the chief minister's word trickled down to the lowest rung in the hierarchy.
"The police helpline concept was tried on an experimental basis in Meerut district. Its success has prompted the government to extend it to the other major cities in the state to serve the larger objective of making the police more easily accessible to the common man," he explained to them.
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