Cyberabad Commissionerate celebrates 10 years

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” Masterpieces of literatures have often testified the dire straits of society, like the aforementioned excerpt from the speech by Mark Antony in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. This is quite relative to the state of the affairs at Cyberabad Commissionerate. It has been a decade since the inception of Cyberabad Commissionerate. Four commissioners stood on the forefront to establish peace and harmony in this part of the city. Each commissioner who headed this commissionerate, proposed a noteworthy initiative, which was evidently very fruitful. But as soon as the commissioner changed, his initiatives too were dumped.

Cyberabad Commissionerate was formed in 2003. The first commissioner of Cyberabad was M Mahender Reddy, IPS, a man with a golden eye. He had much responsibility over his shoulders for he was the first commissioner of Cyberabad.

He proposed the idea of Cultural Change Management Programme (CCMP). The aim of the programme was to reduce the communication gap between cops and the public. According to him, the proposal would in turn help nabbing more number of petty criminals and reduce crimes in various police station limits. The concept was first of its kind in entire country. Back in the day, around 98 per cent of the people were reluctant to approach police for any matter.

The programme was meant to inculcate a people-friendly environment in various police station limits. The idea was welcomed and orders were given to Station Head Officers (SHOs) and Circle Inspectors (CIs) to build a good relation with the people. The plan was acclaimed by everyone and yielded good results. In one year, the recovery of stolen goods and properties increased from 23.27 per cent in 2003 to 32.8 per cent in 2004. Mahender Reddy’s term came to an end and so did the CCMP programme.

In 2007, Prabhakar Reddy took over as in-charge of the commissionerate. One of his notable initiatives was ‘Exercise for Cops’. The initiative was approved. Every cop - from a constable to a commissioner - was asked to attend the training which was conducted at the Police Academy. Sadly, as Prabhakar Reddy left the desk, the programme was withdrawn.

The next commissioner to take charge was Dwarka Tirumala Rao. Tirumala Rao was an eminent commissioner and had started multiple initiatives. One of the most acclaimed concepts for traffic violations was started by him; it was called Total Offence Free Entity (TOFFEE). In this programme, vehicle owners of an organisation could submit their vehicles documents through their respective organisations to the local traffic police station. The traffic police officers would scrutinise the documents and issue TOFE stickers with a year’s validity. Owner of the vehicles were asked to display the sticker on their vehicles and were promised that they would not be stopped for routine check for documents. Around 349 employees from Wipro, 246 from Microsoft got these stickers. These stickers today are null and drab.

Another initiative by him which could take off is ‘Lockers in Lock-ups’. Due to increasing theft cases in many areas, especially when the residents are away on a trip, he suggested the concept of lockers in lock-up. Here, provisions would be made for anyone who wished to keep their valuables in the police station. New lockers would be bought for this purpose, which will be operated using two keys, one of them would be possessed by the owner and the other by the police station. Apparently the programme was about to start from Balanagar Police Station but before it could take off, Tirumala Rao was transferred and posted elsewhere.

At present CV Anand is the commissioner of Cyberabad. One of the noteworthy initiatives by him is the ‘Good Citizen’ award. The idea here is to recognise the services of citizens, who have gone out of their way to prevent or detect a crime, to prevent a law and order situation from developing, and to help fellow citizens in an "exceptional manner".

Will stats rule the roost again and will this initiative also die after CV Anand finishes his term? Well, that only time can tell.