Mumbai Police start virtual meetings to address issues

Amid the surge in Covid-19 cases in the city, to redress citizen’s grievances and encourage public participation in solving local issues, the Mumbai Police have initiated virtual public meetings through Zoom and WhatsApp video conferencing

Amid the surge in Covid-19 cases in the city, to redress citizen’s grievances and encourage public participation in solving local issues, the Mumbai Police have initiated virtual public meetings through Zoom and WhatsApp video conferencing.

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On Monday, senior police officers of the force started a virtual interaction with traders association members, establishments association representatives, community leaders, local politicians, businessmen as well as people from various walks of life through Zoom meeting.

“The initiative aims at reaching out to maximum people to know their grievances and issues, due to the imposition of another lockdown and come up with solutions by mutual understanding and dialogues. Virtual communication would also help avoid public meetings and gatherings. This method is also effective in getting the cooperation and involvement of the citizens in battling the present crisis,” joint commissioner of police, law and order, Vishwas Nangre Patil said.

As part of the initiative, all beat chowki in-charges, senior inspectors of all 95 police stations, assistant commissioner of police (ACP), deputy commissioners of police (DCP) and additional commissioner of police have been asked to form multiple WhatsApp groups in their respective regions to know about the problems faced by people from all sections of society during pandemic and lockdown and solve them with the participation of concerned people. The joint commissioner of police, law and order, Vishwas Nangre Patil, was added to all groups. Patil could make surprise visits anytime during the virtual meetings and check if it is being done properly. The initiative also aims to reach out to people by maintaining much needed social distancing.

ACPs and senior police inspectors would be administrators of WhatsApp groups, which would include local retailers/trader groups’ representatives, school-colleges principles, members of religious prayers halls/trusts, local civic corporation officials, community leaders, social workers, NGO members, members of labourers groups, migrants and members of slum and Muhalla committees, etc.

While DCPs and additional CPs would form groups for virtual public meetings of members of associations of hotels, traders, e-commerce site operators, app-based food, grocery delivery service operators, shop owners, citizens associations, members of taxi-auto unions, executives of app-based taxi operators, private hospitals, senior Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials and concerned state government department officials.

“From street vendors to big traders, everyone has been connected to police through this platform. Without physically meeting we are listening to people’s problems, providing them help, taking suggestions and enhancing our response to serve them better. This method lowers the risk of contractions of the virus and also discourages people from taking to streets to stage protests, morcha, dharnas, etc.,” said an IPS officer requesting anonymity.

The city police have also called in additional security personnel from reserve police force for swift implementation of lockdown restrictions, another senior officer said.

The virtual public meetings will also help reduce the growing infection among police personnel. So far 101 policemen from the Mumbai Police force have died of Covid infection, while total 7,997 cases of infection have been reported since April 2020. Presently the city police force has 460 active infected policemen.

Meanwhile, 30,760 police officers have taken the first vaccine dose and 17,360 have taken the second dose. However, as the families of most of the policemen are still deprived of vaccines, the police personnel will have to be as alert as last year.