Mann Government Unveils Rs 800 Crore Punjab Police Vision 2026 to Cut Emergency Response Time to 7 Minutes

To make policing more efficient, responsive, and professional as per the commitment of Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav on Wednesday outlined an ambitious and technology-driven "Vision 2026" for the Punjab Police, centered on a massive infrastructure and capability upgrade.

A key focus is the upgrade of the Dial 112 Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) with dedicated Dial 112 Central control room building to be established at Mohali with the cost of ₹52 crores, while a fleet of vehicles will be augmented with the cost of ₹50 crores.

"Our target is to drastically reduce the current average response time of 12-13 minutes to just 7-8 minutes," said the DGP, while adding that simultaneously, District Control Rooms across Punjab are also being upgraded with an investment of ₹25 crores to ensure seamless coordination and faster incident management, directly contributing to the reduced response time target.

DGP Gaurav Yadav, accompanied by IGP Headquarters Sukhchain Singh Gill, was addressing a press conference to share the future roadmap of Punjab Police.

For border security, DGP Gaurav Yadav said that the Second Line of Defence will see 2,367 CCTV cameras installed at 585 locations along the International Border at a cost of ₹49.58 crores, which will be act as force multipliers.

The Anti-Drone System (ADS) fleet will be expanded from the current three operational systems to an additional six under procurement, with 10 more to be procured later in a phased manner, he said, while adding that Drone Response Teams (DRTs) have also been pressed into action, and will be greatly synergised with Village Defence Committees (VDC) members' involvement in the coming year.

Highlighting the continuous modernisation drive, the DGP revealed that the Punjab Government has spent over ₹800 crores on modernisation of Punjab Police in the last three years. He said that all the SP rank officers in the field have been given new vehicles, besides, all the Police Stations and Police Posts have also been equipped with new vehicles.

He added that the state government has approved a mega police building project worth ₹426 crores to be spent over the next three years. This includes new headquarters for the Cyber Crime division at Phase 4 in Mohali, new police lines in Nawanshahr and Malerkotla districts, and 11 other new police station buildings. New ANTF range offices will be opened in Ludhiana, Ferozepur, and Jalandhar, with existing ones upgraded with modern gadgets and forensic tools.

The DGP said that pursuant to the New Criminal Laws, witness protection scheme has already been notified by the Punjab government which will further help in improving the conviction rate. Network connectivity at Police Stations will be upgraded by 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps at all the Police Stations depending on the workload.

He informed that the AGTF has further upgraded its technical capabilities with Punjab Artificial Intelligence System (PAIS 2.0) now supporting voice analysis, besides other state-of-art features, and Organised Criminal Information System (OCIS)- Powerful digital solution designed to streamline the management of criminal records- is further being upgraded.

DGP Gaurav Yadav also stressed that Punjab Police will focus on thorough investigation to identify and take stringent action against travel agents involved in procuring / facilitating passports on fake particulars for organised criminals.

To improve traffic management and emergency response in cities, the DGP said that dedicated Traffic and Road Safety Police Stations will be established. These will be integrated with Integrated Command & Control Centres (IC3) for real-time monitoring using city CCTV feeds and adaptive traffic signals, he said.