Madurai district police go digital for better handling of public grievances petitions

Scores of people from far and near visit the District Police office to air their grievances to the Superintendent of Police. Though the police have a proper system to dispose of the grievances petitions, often the process gets unduly delayed.

“When I found same person visiting more than twice with the same complaint, I realised that there was some disconnect in taking forward the petition to the officer concerned on time,” said Madurai Superintendent of Police, B.K. Arvind.

On receipt of the petition, the SP would direct his office to send the right officer for the enquiry.

It could be an Additional Superintendent of Police or a Deputy Superintendent of Police, Inspector or Sub-Inspector of Police.

“The physical copy of the petition gets stuck for a day or two at different levels to reach the Sub-Inspector in a corner of the district. But, the problem does not end there, whereas only after reaching the right officer can the enquiry in the complaint begin,” he said.

Similarly, the action taken reports on grievance redressal mechanism would also face the same problem in reaching the SP with much delay.

Hence, the SP has come out with a software where the petitions are uploaded and sent directly to the officer concerned within a few hours. The officer can act immediately on the same day or next and try to find a solution.

“In petty quarrels and scuffles, the SI or Inspector will find a solution. But, they cannot do anything on civil disputes,” the SP said.

The action taken would be uploaded through the same software and the officials at every level can review the process.

Under the system, every petitioner gets a printed acknowledgement. Besides, the officials can see the progress on a real-time basis.

Reports on number of petitions disposed of, pending with each officer, police station, sub-division can be known at the click of a button. The time delay is avoided.

“The major benefit in the system is a feedback option. A dedicated team would call each of the petitioner after getting the action taken report and get their feedback based on which grading is done at three categories — A for finding solution to the satisfaction of the petitioner, B for conducting enquiry, but not to his satisfaction and C for not properly conducting the enquiry at all,” the SP said.

The officer who gets ‘C’ ranking would be asked to give explanation and again the petition is enquired by the next-level officer, he said.

The SP said that the new system which has been in force for the last 10 weeks has given better results.

“Petitioners are happy as they need not spend their time and energy for travelling all the way to the DPO again for the same issue,” the SP said.