Andhra Pradesh DGP elaborates on performance by state police during 2020

Amravati (Andhra Pradesh) [India], December 23 : Andhra Police is actively participating in government efforts to battle the Covid-19 pandemic, state Director General of Police (DGP) Gautam Sawang said on Wednesday.
Addressing a press conference here the DGP elaborated on the performance of state police during the year.
"The police as frontline warriors faced the challenge bravely and ensured people's safety in a professional manner due to this 109 policemen have been martyred," Sawang said.
"Compared to 2019, we saw a 16 per cent reduction in cognisable crime found, followed by bodily offences by 2 per cent, property offences by 12 per cent, white-collar offences by 13 per cent and a crime against women decrease by 7.5 per cent," he said and added that the technology utilisation was improved during the year to achieve transparency, accountability and efficiency in the police system.
"Stringent action is taken in enforcement work. The enforcement work increased by 58 per cent followed by excise cases by 72 per cent, sand theft cases by 56 per cent, gaming act cases by 33 per cent, gutka cases by 13 per cent and NDPS cases increase by 9 per cent. Police seva mobile app, Disha, APCOPS received good response from public. The Police achieved second place in Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) for integrating police stations, courts and prisons," he said.
Saying that the law is equal to all, the DGP also said that the state government has created 'Special Enforcement Bureau' (SEB) for reducing alcohol consumption. 6,96,88 cases are registered during the year in sand or liquor cases by the SEB whereas 89,000 persons are arrested, among them 211 was government employees including 79 police.
"Women safety initiatives taken are Zero FIR registration at all Police Stations, women help desks, Disha app with single touch SOS button is introduced, fixed time frame for investigation and scheduling of trial, Mahila Mitra committee with 8-10 members are setup at all PSs. Along with 1,551 cyberbullying sheets were opened, Disha control rooms and call centre was also setup which was functioning well," he said.
The DGP said the government of Maharashtra took note of the Disha program and "their Home Minister and DGP interacted with us, and started a similar program few days ago."

Talking about the operation Muskaan, the DGP said that 25,298 children are rescued in which 21,018 boys and 4, 280 girls included. The operation was conducted throughout the state in three phases to rescue and rehabilitate the missing children. In 'Spandana' program for faster disposal of cases. 96,551 petitions received, out of which 21,827 FIRs registered which was a 23 per cent of the petitions. 99 per cent of petitions were disposed within seven days. The 52 per cent of the complainants were women.
The state police seva mobile app provides 87 citizen services like SOS, lodging petition, FIR status, passport status, job verifications and many more. A large number of people are using this app. In past three months 1,14,581 FIR copies are downloaded, 5,234 searches were made for missing persons, 4,876 searches for unknown dead bodies and 7,654 searches were made for arrests. Andhra Pradesh Police received national-level gold medal for this.
Finger Prints Bureau stood first in the country with 9,51,457 finger print records in the database.
Talking about the achievement the DGP said that the state police bagged 108 awards, including two gold and 13 silver in 2020. He also said that for police welfare, 60 lakhs insurance coverage for accidental and permanent disability from January 2021 is introduced with support of Axis Bank in service and retired. We are going to fix CCTV cameras in lockups. The decision was taken even before the Supreme Courts directive came," he said.
"A direct toll-free number at the DGP office will be set up soon to bring transparency and accountability in police department. The average time to complete an investigation of crime against women was more than 100 days in past three years, it is reduced to 53 days in 2020. Similarly SC, ST cases investigation time also decreased to 50 days," the DGP said.