14-pt city policing project awaits Centre nod

The 14-point mega city policing proposals are soon going to be submitted to the Centre by a specially formed committee to help New Delhi draw up policy recommendations based on them, senior police officers in Mumbai confirmed recently.

Under the present mega-city policing scheme—which envisions large-scale chances in routine policing ways — Mumbai is likely to be accorded ‘maximum importance’ largely due to its size, cosmopolitan character and high vulnerability quotient. 

Police Commissioner D N Jadhav told DNA, “We are on the last leg of submitting the recommendations to New Delhi. Final touches are being given to the array of mega-city policing recommendations.”

Following the submission of the proposals the Union Home ministry is expected to initiate the process of formulating policies aimed at upgrading the overall security architecture of all the seven metros across the country.

Police Commissioners and other senior officers of five cities had initially discussed the modalities and finer aspects of the proposals at a meeting in the city in April. 

The logic behind the mega-city project, as enunciated by Home Minister Shivraj Patil sometime ago, is to overhaul and give more teeth to the existing policing system. This is considering the backdrop of the assorted threats from terrorist offenders and other well-networked trans-national criminal syndicates and individuals.

According to sources, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has already allocated Rs 127 crore for the mega-city projects, which includes cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.