CHENNAI: The Chennai police may boast of having the largest jurisdictional area among the metropolitan police departments in the country, but the size of the Greater Chennai police limits has raised concerns among people over grievance redressal. Absence of an online grievance redressal mechanism by the city police is, in fact, being felt the most by Chennaiites. The city police commissionerate, which is spread over an area of 588 square kilometres, encompassing about a population of one crore, is headquartered in Egmore. The limits of the police district spreads from Tambaram and Sholinganallur in the South to Ambattur and Avadi in the West and Ennore and Madhavaram in the North. People in these far-flung areas said they found it difficult to visit the city police commissionerate to file their grievances.“The City Police Commissioner, JK Tripathy, says that people can lodge their complaints at the local police stations or to the deputy commissioners of their respective localities. However, he doesn’t understand the humiliation the complainants face at the hands of the local police,” said a businessman, on condition of anonymity. He claimed he was being made to run around by the Arumbakkam police (Crime branch) for the past 15 days, even after having filed a complaint at the commissionerate.“If the police commissionerate has an online grievance redressal system, it will not only be useful for filing complaints, but also for updating the local police action in the grievance redressal system,” he said, adding that it would bring accountability to the functioning of the police system.This apart, people residing in places like T Nagar, Adyar, East Coast Road, Mylapore, Kilpauk, Triplicane, Anna Nagar and Ambattur who are tech-savvy, were prepared to file their complaints online, said a senior police officer.For instance, the new online initiative by the traffic police two months ago — starting up a Facebook page and inviting the complaints from the residents — has become a big hit, said a senior officer. He added that thousands of residents were filing complaints and making suggestions through Facebook.“We are overwhelmed by the immediate response from the traffic police to our complaints and they are also uploading photo evidence of their action on Facebook, which has increased our confidence in the police,” said Sandya Raju, an employee in a private firm.Sandya and a few other office-going women say that it will be easy for working women to file complaints on eve-teasing and sexual harassment online. The facility will also ensure that their identities will not be out in the open, while the perpetrators will be brought to book.A 25-year-old woman IT employee working in a leading software company at Thoraipakkam, said that, though they were facing a lot of harassment while commuting back home in autos and MTC buses, they were hesitant to go to the police for fear of repercussions. “If the city police introduce an online grievance redressal system, it will be of great help,” she added.Vivek, another IT employee, said it will reduce corruption in the functioning of police.A senior police officer was also of the same opinion. However, he cautioned that they should establish a full-fledged system and not something on an ad hoc basis, which could become defunct later.“Earlier, there was an online complaint system but its functions depended on the interest of the Commissioner. Once the police commissioner who introduced the system was transferred, the system became obsolete,” he pointed out.
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