Now, smartly-dressed trained women cops to greet you at police stations

Next time you enter a police station, you might be confused that you entered an airline as smartly -dressed women in civilian dress might greet you. They would be your first point of contact in the police station and would guide you to the officer concerned or help you out to provide you hassle-free service. They would be called Woman Public Facilitation Officers.

The Delhi Police plan to start the service from 20 police stations initially for which they have trained 60 woman sub-inspectors of the force.

Apart from being smartly-dressed, they are trained in having excellent communication skills. Cases that are sensitive would be dealt by these officers.

This is an effort by the Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik to makeover the image of Delhi Police and make it more public-friendly.

There were times when a duty officer at the police station used to be preoccupied with tasks like answering phone calls, logging all calls and their details on the register and communicating relevant maters to the police staff in the station. This meant that they had little or no time to effectively hear out public grievances or guide them.

In the first phase, police stations of Tilak Marg, Chanakyapuri and Connaught Place have been chosen from New Delhi . Similarly, Defence Colony, South Campus and Vasant Vihar have been chosen from the South district.

Greater Kailash ,New Friends Colony, CR Park and Nizamuddin have been selected in South-east Delhi to start with. The cops say that this would soon be expanded to various other police stations as well. "The purpose is to make police interaction with the public more responsive and effective," said a senior police officer.