HM holds meeting on Police Mission to make force more effective

New Delhi, Nov 3 (UNI) Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil today held a high level meeting to deliberate on the purpose and road map for the proposed Police Mission meant to transform the police into a modern, capable, responsive and people-friendly force.

The meeting was crucial in view of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's earlier declared intention to set up a Police Mission to give a new outlook and a new vision to the police to help meet the emerging challenges and expectations of a modern civil society.

The first meeting of the Steering Group, constituted to identify the goals, objectives and role for the Mission as also to delineate its roadmap and milestones and the Executive Committee meant to work out the details of the implementation methodology was held at the Home Ministry.

In the above brainstorming session, intensive discussions were held on ways and means to transform the police into a modern, capable, responsive and people-friendly organisation. Based on the inputs received from various experts, a paper with the formal structure, goals, objectives and methodology of the Mission would now be framed for consideration of the Government.

The meet also discussed the issue of providing modern equipment and investigative tools to police to arrest criminals. The issue of making police people-friendly and sensitive to their needs also figured at the meet.

It also deliberated on the recommendation of the Police Act Drafting Committee to amend the 145-year-old police act and make changes like seperation of law and order maintenance and investigative job of police and fixed tenure of two-years to senior police officers and a mechanism to protect police from ''extraneous (political) influence.'' The meeting was attended by National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, Home Secretary V K Duggal, eminent experts, representatives of academia, management experts, leaders of trade and industry and senior officers from the central and state Governments. The Director of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore; Director General of CII, Secretary Geberal of FICCI, Scientifuc advisor to Defence Minister, DG of BPRD, several DGPs of the States and CBI director were among those who provided expert inputs on the issue of police reforms.

UNI AJ PA HS2030