BHUBANESWAR: Puri police have asked its control room staff to send cops to any crime or accident spot within 15 minutes from the time of receiving a distress call. The move is aimed at improving the response time of the police in Puri town and municipality area.
The 15-minute deadline was set following allegations that most police control room (PCR) vans often reached the spots late, causing resentment among the locals, especially the complainants. Besides, there was no mechanism to monitor the response of the PCR vans upon receipt of calls at the dial 100 control room or the 5-T call centre.
“We have introduced a communication protocol with matrix escalation system to further improve the response of the police. If a PCR van does not reach the spot within 15 minutes, the city deputy superintendent of police will receive an alert. If no police van reaches the spot within 30 minutes, I will get an instant alert for intervention,” Puri superintendent of police Kanwar Vishal Singh told TOI.
As per the new standard operating procedure, the control room will immediately alert the local police station about the complaint or information received from the public. Besides, the control room staff will immediately ask PCR vans to rush to the spot.
Currently, Puri town has 8 PCR vans. Police are scheduled to start bike patrolling in the town from Monday. The PCR vans have been asked to share their live locations on the official WhatsApp group of the Puri police. Soon, the police vans will be fitted with GPS vehicle location tracking device.
The police personnel, who usually man the PCR vans, will undergo a specialized training on the procedures of giving primary care to road accident victims while shifting them to hospital. Since police are the first responders to accident-related calls, the Puri police have sought the help of some trauma care specialists to train the cops to save the lives of accident victims in ‘golden hours’ (first few hours of the accident).
A few days ago, the Puri police started a service of providing necessary police-related assistance to the elderly people at the doorstep. Police stations have been asked to receive complaints from senior citizens from their homes.