AMRITSAR – Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab, today laid the foundation of major initiatives to make Punjab police ‘Citizen Friendly’ as he inaugurated 115 community policing centers brand named ‘Saanjh’. The Deputy Chief Minister symbolically launched the first of its own kind community policing initiative by inaugurating state-of-the-art Saanjh Kendras at Majitha and Civil Lines, marking a new beginning to give civil citizen friendly face to Punjab Police.
Lauding the Punjab Police for realizing his dreams by constructing 115 Saanjh kendrayas within a record period of 4 months, Mr. Badal said that Punjab Police deserve pat for constructing the centers, preparing human resource backup for all theses kendras besides giving final touch to the hardware and software of these kendrayas within short span of time. He said that these Saanjh kendrayas would provide 20 civil services of Punjab Police including verification of tenants, registration and verification of servants, passport verifications, police clearance certificate, verification of vehicles, character verification for service, payment of traffic challans, information of impounded vehicles, receiving complaints of community traffic problems in the area, permission for political/sports/religious functions, NOC for armed license, permission for loud speakers for processions etc. He said that Punjab would become the first state that would provide copy of FIR online besides copy of cancellation or untraced reports. He said that crime information counter at the Saanjh Kendras would provide information regarding unclaimed bodies, lost vehicles, missing articles and documents, missing mobile sets, missing persons/child.
Giving the background of this initiative, the Deputy Chief Minister said that his basic endeavour was to reduce the interaction of general public with Khaki police. He said that there was an inherent fear amongst the common citizens to enter into Thana for even civil work, therefore, the Saanjh Kendras have been constructed separately from police stations and persons manning these Kendras were dressed in civil and corporate style dress. He said that the ambience of Saanjh kendrayas gives a look of corporate style office so that any citizen can without hesitation approach these Kendras.
Mr. Badal said that after the initiation of community police reforms and new Commissionerate system, the crime rate in Punjab has come down 22% reflecting that people has started reposing faith in the working of Punjab Police. The ambitious named Saanjh was launched in the state in 2010, which extended the concept of Community Policing Centre, to the Sub-division and the Police Station. Even more significantly, Saanjh Centres have been made the focal point of Police Community partnership. The state allocated Rs. 30 crores for the Saanjh Project in 2010-11 and another Rs. 30 crores in the succeeding financial year 2011-2012.
The Deputy Chief Minister said that Saanjh project was an institutionalized set up of management of Community Police Resource Centers, named as Saanjh Kendras at 27 Police Districts,114 subdivisions and 359 Police Stations in the State. He informed that a Community Affairs Division headed by an IGP at Police Headquarters would supervise the functioning of the Saanjh Kendras across the State. Zonal IGPs and Range DIGs shall be the intermediary supervisory levels and to give a distinctive identity to the Saanjh Centres, all Centers have a uniformly designed building with standardized furniture, furnishings and layout. He revealed that every Saanjh Kendra would be run by a Police-Public Committee comprising of Police Officers, Representatives of Government Departments such as Health, Education, Women at the district and sub-divisional level and representatives from among Principals of Colleges, Professionals and Civil Society, Non Governmental Organizations.
Giving the details of the working of Saanjh Kendras, a statewide IT platform with centralized server at Police Headquarters linked to every Saanjh Kendra shall enable centralized data uploading and access providing citizens with copies of FIRs, untraced reports, no objection certificates, etc., at a click of a button, in a time bound frame. Every Saanjh Kendra would provide all services to be delivered by the Police Department as enshrined in the Right to Service Act within prescribed time limits to the people from a single window. The citizen from any part of the State would be able to approach the nearest Saanjh Kendra for obtaining information/services from any Police Station in the state including remote locations, he added.
Mr. Badal said that for NRIs, the Saanjh Kendras would accept applications for registration of foreigners on arrival and departure, MRG enquiries in case of lost of passport abroad, complaint of fraud and cheating by travel agents, NRIs complaints and queries besides extension of residential permits for the foreigners.
The Deputy Chief Minister said that the cadre for community policing was separate from general police and he has fixed a quota of 1 percent promotion for community police personnel. He said that to motivate the personnel working in community policing 5 state medals have been earmarked for community police initiatives. Mr. Badal said that he would personally monitor the working of community police initiatives and performance of senior police officers in this area would be recorded in their ACRs.
It may be mentioned here that today’s ceremony marked the opening of 115 Saanjh Kendras all over the state, whereas 116 more under construction Saanjh Kendras would be operational by the end of this year. The Deputy Chief Minister said that whole country was looking towards the success of Saanjh experiment in Punjab and he was receiving queries from all over the country as many state wants to replicate this experiment in their own state.
Earlier Mr. Tikshan Sud, Local Government Minister, said that electorate of Punjab are set to re-elect SAD-BJP government in Vidhan Sabha 2012 elections awarding it for ‘Citizen Friendly’ initiatives like Right to Service Act, Local Government package, e-governance initiatives in transport department and Saanjh Kendras.
Member Parliament, Mr. Navjot Singh Sidhu said that Punjab was showing to the whole country that how systemic changes can strike at the root cause of corruption.
Earlier, Punjab DGP Mr. Anil Kaushik welcomed the Deputy Chief Minister and promised to make Saanjh concept a grand success. Mr. S.K. Sharma, ADGP/HRD and community Policing, Mrs Gurpreet Kaur Deo, IGP/NRI and Community Affairs Division, Mr. Parmod Ban, DIG Patiala Range and Mr. Shive Kumar Verma AIG Community Policing gave presentations regarding the whole concept and philosophy of ‘Saanjh Kendras’.
Prominent amongst others, who were present on the occasion Mr. Inderbir Singh Bularia, Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Mr. Bikram Singh Majithia and Mr. Anil Joshi, both MLAs, and Mayor Mr. Shwait Malik.
