Let us see some movement on police reforms.

Well, yesterday this blog raised the subject of disproportionate focus by the government on the armed police at the cost of the civil police. As if almost on cue, the Prime Minister in his speech to the state police chiefs tried to redress the imbalance.

Let me now move to certain areas in which the Central and State Governments need to take quick action. It is absolutely imperative that we strengthen policing at the grassroots level. The Police Station has to be the fulcrum around which this needs to take place. A large increase in the number of Police Stations along with raising the strength of Police Stations has to be undertaken. We need far higher numbers of policemen and policewomen to improve the present low police-population ratio of 145 per hundred thousand of population. As a first step, I would urge all of you to do everything possible to fill up the large number of vacancies that exist today at various levels in our police force. At the same time greater attention has to be paid to the provision of adequate amenities for the constables and I would like to particularly emphasize a provision of housing facilities for our policemen. A situation that a large number of policemen are compelled to make private arrangements for renting houses is fraught with serious problems, particularly, from the view point of enforcement of effective law and order.

But increasing numbers will not be enough. We need a new-age Policeman who is more professional, better-motivated, suitably empowered, well-trained, one who places greater emphasis on technology for investigation and other tasks. Emphasis should be on capacity building from the police station level itself, so that the police is better equipped. Each police station should aim at being self-sufficient and needs to be given the required resources in terms of anti-riot gear, better weapons, the nucleus of a mobile forensic unit and be connected to a networked criminal data base management system. Every city should have a modern police control room with digitized maps. The key here lies in the plans for the modernization of our Police force. I am aware that the Police modernization framework is being substantially enlarged, but I would still urge that modernization of the Police should receive the highest priority. Our police forces must operate on the frontiers of modern technology. We must also design systems and procedures which will minimize scope for corruption. We should have a sufficiently long-term perspective in this area and also the required amount of funds should be made available for the purpose.

I must specially emphasize here the critical importance of training for policemen. I understand that on the average a Police officer is retrained only once in about twenty years. This is totally inadequate in the changed circumstances and this must be rectified. It would also help if the police were to benchmark their training curricula with the syllabi and training methodologies of Police training institutions elsewhere in the world to ensure better quality. The world is changing and changing very rapidly and Police training must keep pace with the best practices being followed in the world.[PIB]

After one full tenure as the head of government in UPA 1.0 and over 100 days in UPA 2.0, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is still only talking about all this. When will you walk the talk, Mr. Prime Minister?