New police stations: Punjab police to spend funds on renovation, construction

LAHORE: Declaring financial year 2021-22 as the year of police stations, Punjab Inspector General of Police (IGP) Inam Ghani has announced that all developmental funds which would be allocated to the Punjab police in the upcoming Annual Development Programme (ADP) 2021-22 which would be spent on the renovation and construction of new special initiative police stations (SIPSs) across Punjab.

The IGP made this disclosure while presiding over a meeting at the Central Police Office (CPO) on Tuesday to review matters pertaining to developmental projects of the Punjab police and other departmental issues. “Crime control and timely solution of citizens’ problems by improving working of police stations is among my top priorities. Therefore, the Punjab police have declared FY-2021-22 as the year of police stations and all development funds received by the force during this period will be spent on the construction and renovation of police stations and provision of modern facilities and resources in them,” he announced.

He said a total of 444 police stations in all cities of the province including Lahore, Multan, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala and Faisalabad would be converted into Special Initiative Police Stations (SIPSs) and computers, vehicles and other electronic equipments as well as provision of all necessary facilities and resources shall be given on priority basis so that the citizens can benefit more from the fast track service delivery.

According to Ghani, encouraging results from the special initiative police stations are coming to light. He hoped that these police stations containing modern technology and smart working ideas will lead to the elimination of problems and immediate provision of services to the citizens while making the police work more efficient and accelerating the process of changing the police station culture which will further strengthen the atmosphere of trust between the police and the people.

The IG asserted that a police station is a basic unit of the police department and steps will be taken to improve the working and dignity of this basic unit. Apart from the protection of lives and properties of the citizens in the SIPSs, special attention has been paid to their convenience and service so the citizens can easily avail better police services, he added.

During the meeting, the IG police was given a detailed briefing on the development projects of the Punjab police on the new financial year. He instructed that the main objective of the special initiative police stations is to eliminate the problems of the citizens besides ensuring easy provision of facilities to them.

“With this modern working system, all matters in the police stations must be carried out in accordance with the issued SOPs on merit,” he instructed, adding that DPOs should personally visit these police station once in a week in their respective districts and monitor the performance for further improvements.

The meeting was attended by AIG Logistics Shahid Hanif, AIG Establishment Punjab Ali Amir Malik, AIG Welfare and Finance Farooq Mazhar, AIG Operations Sahibzada Shehzad Sultan, DIG R&D Shahid Javed, DIG IT Waqas Nazir, DIG Operations Sohail Akhtar Sukhera, AIG Finance Ghazi Salahuddin, AIG Development Muhammad Ali Zia and AIG Operations Syed Zeeshan Raza.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021