Ongole: Cops go hi-tech in addressing woes

Ongole: The Spandana programme being implemented in Prakasam district by police department with the support of technical support is proved to be a boon for petitioners. The police received a total of 2,653 petitions in Spandana, of them, the police have resolved 2,370 cases and received satisfactory feedback from applicants.

On every Monday, the officials receive petitions from public requesting them to act on issues bothering them.

Prakasam SP Siddharth Kaushal, a tech-savvy officer, introduced video conferencing system connecting all police stations across the district at a nominal expenditure of Rs 2,100 per computer and presented a demo to DGP Gautam Sawang.

The SP utilised the same for the benefit of addressing public grievances who cannot spend money and time to come to Ongole from remote places. The SP announced that the public who would like to submit their petitions for videoconference slot, receive a receipt from the SP office instead of local police. The SP office is streaming the live Spandana programme through Facebook and receiving more than one lakh views on an average and responding to public on the same platform.

The SP launched the regular Spandana programme from July 1 and online Spandana from September 16 and SP interacted with 100 people from their local places and saw them all disposed of in no time. Overall, the SP office received 1,732 petitions in Ongole while the local officers received 919 petitions in the last 16 weeks and filed FIRs in 610 grave cases and redressed 1,760 issues at the field level based on the petitions. The department announced that they received 225 complaints on land disputes and disposed of all petitions with the help of revenue officials.

The programme helped many people like Konkala Chinnapareddy, a pastor at Thurpupalem in Chimakurthy mandal, who was cheated by the former manager of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Office in Nellore for Rs 1.50 crore in the name of deposits in the bank. The police recovered all the money, jewellery and land documents after arresting the accused. Shaik Khadar Basha of Racharla village expressed gratitude to police when they recovered Rs 16 lakh out of Rs 20 lakh that was given to Perla Parameswara Reddy for a job to his son. The accused gave a promissory note for the remaining Rs 4 lakh to Basha in the presence of village elders.

Responding on the success of Spandana, Siddharth Kaushal said the police should adopt soft language and behave well with the petitioners who are knocking the doors of police stations. He ordered the subordinates that priority should be given to women petitioners.