Director General of Police (DGP) Maharashtra Sanjay Pandey, for the first time, interacted with the entire police force in a Facebook live session on Sunday. During the two-hour session, the constabulary raised several issues, such as transfers, loans and allowances before the DGP.
The Maharashtra police has a 2.25 lakh strong force, of which the constabulary comprises 1.95 lakh. A senior officer, who was part of the interaction, said that a lot of requests were received, especially from the lower rung of the police force, for an interaction on FB. "Several issues, such as promotions, transfers, house building advance loans, medical bills clearance and uniform allowances, were discussed during the two-hour interactive session," said the officer.
The Idea behind the session was to hear the issues faced by the force and see what all can be put into place. The Maharashtra DGP has 3,800 friends and 9,500 followers on the FB page. The session was open to all ranks, but mostly constabulary, sub-inspectors and inspectors joined the interaction. “The issue of transfer of constables is looked into by the district unit commanders. Transfer of inspectors is expected very soon. We will have more such interactions in the future," said the officer.
This is not the first time Pandey had used a social media platform for interaction. In May, this year, he conducted a one-hour interactive session on Twitter with citizens across the state. Citizens brought several issues to his notice, such as corruption in the force, Covid-19-related problems and police recruitment. The DGP responded to most of the issues. Over 400 queries were raised on #AskDGPMaharashtra during the session.