In a bid to improve transparency and accountability among police personnel in addressing grievances of the public, the Tiruvannamalai district police have introduced a software application to internally track the status of petitions that are filed at police stations.
Accompanied by N. Kannan, IG (North zone) and M.S. Munusamy, DIG (Vellore range), K. Shankar, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Law and Order, launched the Petition Enquiry and Tracking System at the district police headquarters in Tiruvannamalai town. “The new [software] app aims at bringing more accountability on the part of inquiry officers in police stations. It will help address petitioners’ grievances faster as senior police officers will monitor the pending pleas on a daily basis,” K. Karthikeyan, SP (Tiruvannamalai), told The Hindu.
According to the police, at present, all 39 police stations in the district had registers to record petitions filed every day. Inquiry into most of these petitions takes a long time, even months, before the cases are solved. As per the norms, a petitioner had to get a copy of the Certificate Signing Request (CSR) by 15 days. But in many cases, it was delayed, and caused physical and mental agony for the petitioners. It resulted in huge backlog of petitions.
Under the new initiative, each police station will have one receptionist to upload the details of the petitioner and the nature of complaint on the software. As many as 45 types of offences including harassment over dowry, robbery, land dispute and public nuisance can be uploaded. Details of the petitions will be linked to a central monitoring system at the SP’s office, where a team of senior officers will supervise developments on the petitions.
The app provides a feedback mechanism for complainants in which they can share their views once their grievances are redressed. Currently, Coimbatore, Vellore and Salem have such apps to track status of petitions. The new exercise will be done along with the age-old custom of maintaining registers for petitions in stations.
