Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today directed the Punjab Police to accelerate implementation of the Amritsar and Ludhiana Safe City projects besides expressing satisfaction with the 181 police helpline.In a meeting with the DGP Punjab Sumedh Singh Saini and senior officers including ADGP Law and Order Dinkar Gupta, the Deputy CM said Amritsar and Ludhiana had been selected among 27 cities for the Safe City project and that all efforts should be made to make use of the most modern technology systems for this project.The Deputy CM also emphasized that a fresh proposal should be submitted by the police department for its modernization and requirements of other equipments like vehicles, which would be a part of issues to be taken up before Union Home Minister Mr. Rajnath Singh. The police officers informed that under this project 1200 CCTV cameras would be installed in Ludhiana whereas 1000 cameras would be installed in Amritsar. The Deputy CM asked the officers to engage private malls and factories as they have already installed a large number of cameras which could also be used as a tool for the security purposes. Mr. Badal has also put a great stress on the installation of speed cameras on all state highways and special cameras on all traffic light points.
While reviewing the functioning of 181 Police helpline, ADGP Mr. Dinkar Gupta informed the Deputy Chief Minister that since its launch 2.36 lakh calls have been received, where people have registered 37295 complaints, out of which 34764 have been disposed of by fully satisfying the complainants. The unique feature of 181 was that 48 per cent calls have been made by female complainants, which has increased a sense of security among women. Mr. Badal also asked the police officials to submit the list regarding the posting tenures of all SHOs in their respective police stations.The Deputy CM asked ADGP Law and Order to undertake an independent audit as well as verification of satisfaction level of complainants. He said a random sample of 200 callers could be carried out by independent agencies for this purpose. He also directed that the ADGP Internal Vigilance Cell should verify all complaints received on the helpline against police officers. Mr Badal said similarly all tips regarding drugs should be directly handled by the concerned Commissioners and SSPs under the supervision of the State Narcotics Control Board.