By Mouli Mareedu
Copyright deccanchronicle
Hyderabad: Telangana Police, in in collaboration the Indian Police Foundation (IPF), will roll out a police reforms project aimed at improving grievance redressal, ensuring responsive policing, enhancing women’s safety and creating a supportive work environment in police stations. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the project was signed on Monday between the Telangana police department and the IPF, following approval by the state home department last week.The IPF, established in 2014 in New Delhi by former Meghalaya DGP N. Ramachandran, is an independent, multi-disciplinary think tank on law enforcement. It is governed by a board of serving and retired police officers, academicians, researchers, and civil servants, and is dedicated to improving policing in India. As part of the reforms, the project will initially be implemented in 15 police stations under the Cyberabad commissionerate and 15 in the Sangareddy district. Director General of Police (DGP) Dr Jitender said public consultation meetings will be organised with complainants, victims, accused, citizen service seekers, NGOs, judiciary and police personnel to identify key issues and focus areas. “Based on these consultations, as well as best practices such as e-FIR, community policing initiatives, SOP revisions and recommendations of various police commissions, a comprehensive document will be prepared. Structured training for all personnel in the 30 selected stations will follow. The project will run for one year and will be evaluated by an independent third party. Successful recommendations will then be scaled up across Telangana. Similar projects are underway in Punjab and Tamil Nadu,” he explained. Abhilasha Bisht, director of the Telangana Police Academy and state nodal officer for the project, said the collaboration reflects the commitment of Telangana police to build a modern, people-centric and forward-looking policing system. She stressed that officers must uphold transparency, standardise procedures and adopt an empathetic approach to meet public expectations on safety, fairness, dignity and trust. IPF president and CEO Om Prakash Singh, a retired IPS officer, underlined the foundation’s mission to improve policing through research, capacity building and policy advocacy. He noted that state chapters are already active in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, with expansion plans underway for Telangana. Dr Ish Kumar, retired IPS officer and IPF vice president, who also serves as the project director, explained that the reforms would directly benefit citizens by streamlining grievance redressal, ensuring responsive policing, improving women’s safety and fostering a supportive work environment for police personnel.
