Interactive policing with social media
Chennai traffic police would be studying the models of Hyderabad police linking violations to individual Aadhaar cards
By : srikkanth dhasarathy
Update: 2014-11-09 05:59 GMT
Chennai: In a move that will encourage interactive policing, city traffic police will study the traffic enforcement models followed in other cities, based on suggestions from people on their Facebook page.Last week, the city traffic police’s official Facebook page, Chennai City Traffic Police (CCTP) had a post which said they would be studying the models of Hyderabad police linking violations to individual Aadhaar cards and Lucknow traffic police using WhatsApp, to see if they can be implemented in the city.
A senior traffic official confirmed to DC that they intend studying traffic enforcement models of other cities and take the suggestions of the people. “This is the way forward, especially to increase the faith of people in the department and to make policing interactive. At times, we are thrown by impractical ideas, but the feasible ones are worth considering,” the official said.
Traffic officials are considering to improvise the Hyderabad traffic police’s pilot initiative of doing away with spot fines and checking vehicle documents during peak hours, introduced three days ago. “We are considering setting up kiosks at points in the city which will act as fine paying points,” a senior official said.According to the official, a social media team comprising sub-inspectors work in two shifts maintaining the Facebook pages. In case of certain complaints we put the traffic police personnel in touch with the complainant to sort out the issue and the response has been phenomenal.
We were commended for responses acknowledging public suggestions and complaints on our Facebook page and in this way, social media acts as an image booster, said an official.
On Lucknow police’s WhatsApp initiative, the official says that the city might not witness such a move soon as the police top brass is still skeptical about its feasibility in a metropolitan city like Chennai. A senior police official in charge of handling social media of the city police says that talk about introducing WhatsApp as a complaint medium is still at a nascent stage as there are chances that the application might be charged for use later.