A competition among police stations to curb crime

Ghaziabad, Oct 13 (IANS) Police in Ghaziabad have found a novel method to battle crime: make police stations here compete among themselves.

Depending on their performance, the police stations will be rated by their overall performance.

Superintendent of Police (City) Salman Taj Patil told IANS: "I have introduced marks to be given to police stations depending on how they fare against crime."

Police stations would get 1 mark for taking action under the Arms Act, 2 marks for taking action against drugs, 3 marks for taking acting against gangsters, 4 marks for solving a robbery and 5 marks for solving a murder.

A full 25 marks would be given for resolving cases under the National Security Act.

Simultaneously, there will also be negative marking: -1/2 mark for chain snatching, -1/2 for burglary, -2 for robbery and -5 for dacoity in the areas falling under the police station.

The net marks would be compared between the eight police stations in Ghaziabad city.

The "winner" police station would earn a certificate while the police station which gets the least marks would get a "warning".

If the non-performing police station does not show any improvement in its working for three months, the concerned police officers would be shunted out.

In the past two months, the Sihani Gate and Vijay Nagar police stations have maintained their number one slot.

"After the introduction of this motivational scheme, the police stations are in the race to get the number one slot," Taj Patil said.

"Hence the crime figures are sharply coming down, which would be disclosed after the end of three months in the first week of November," he added.