Police pagers more abused than used

Thus, three months after select constables were fitted out with pagers, the experiment cannot be written off as a total failure. It’s certainly paying dividends for a section of their seniors and family members!

The Vadodara police introduced the pager-constable with great fanfare — advertisements in the dailies, hoardings at prime locations, press conferences — promising that the ’90s communication device would finally bridge the gap between the common man and the constable, and allow the police to respond that much more promptly to emergencies. A reality check, therefore, comes as a shock.

True, Indians take a long time to warm up to anything new. Add to that a chalta hai mind-set nurtured over decades. And you have the answer for why the pager experiment is a flop so far as the public is concerned.

Less than five per cent of the 5,000 messages beeped to 132 pagers over the past three months were sent by civilians. The reason is not far to seek: police response to the complaints relating to traffic problems, road mishaps, harassment of women, robberies and the like has been far from speedy.

Consider the September 8 robbery at 603, Prudential Towers, Sayajigunj. Prakash Macwan paged the police at 5.51 p.m. and then again at 6.24 p.m. No policeman turned up, apparently because the constable in question couldn’t understand English, in which language the message was sent.

Incidentally, all pager messages are monitored by the police control room. But personnel there rarely take action, believing that the constable paged will take care of the problem.

Talking to Express Newsline on condition of anonymity, a policeman admitted that a major chunk of the constabulary — including himself — didn’t follow English. “We have to approach some passer-by who knows English or the nearest PSI”, a constable said. “And this takes time”.

Sections of the public, too, prefer the immediacy of the telephone to the anonymity of the pager. A social worker who dialled 100 recently to report an ammonia gas leak did so to ensure his message was at least recorded, if not responded to. “If the pager-constable is not prompt in checking messages, it could have disastrous consequences”, he said.

Ajay Dave, another social-worker, too, called up the police to inform them of a chain-snatching incident in Alkapuri. “The amount of information you can convey on a pager is limited. Besides, there’s no confirmation”, he explained.

If the public is yet to accept the pager method whole-heartedly, a section of the police already seem to have given up on it. A senior police official, for instance, said telephones and the wireless were much faster means of communication. “Whatever their purpose, pagers have not made any qualitative change in crime control; crime is still rising”, declared an assistant commissioner of police.

However, Police Commissioner Kuldip Sharma, whose brainchild the pager system was, said it was too early to write it off. “The media expect results overnight. It will take some time for police and public attitudes to change”, he reasoned.

Anyway, he added, the language barrier would be overcome by the end of the year, when messages can be transmitted in Gujarati as well.