Centre to carry out pan-India survey to gauge public perception on police services

The Union Home Ministry will carry out a pan-India survey to assess public perception on citizen-centric police services like women safety and reporting of crimes, officials said Thursday.

The survey will commence next month and cover a representative sample of 1.2 lakh households spread over 173 districts across the country, based on the National Sample Survey framework.

All the states and the Union Territories would be included in this survey and it will be completed in nine months, a Home Ministry official said.

The survey is aimed to understand public perception about police, gauge the level of non-reporting of crimes or incidents to police, the position on ground relating to crime reporting and recording, timeliness and quality of police response and action and experience about women and children's safety.

The outcome of the survey is expected to bring out useful suggestions for stakeholders in formulating and implementing appropriate policy responses and changes in the functioning of police at the cutting edge and for improving crime prevention and investigation, transformation in community policing.

It is also expected to improve the access to the justice and increased or appropriate resource allocation for police in a systematic manner, the official said.

From time-to-time, several initiatives have been taken by the central government, aimed at facilitating and supplementing the efforts of state governments and the Union Territories in providing citizen-centric police services.

A globally accepted way to assess the impact or outcomes of such endeavours is through a holistic analysis of services rendered to the public, through public perception surveys conducted by professional and independent agencies.

Such surveys are globally tested tools for improving service delivery in policing and enhancing public satisfaction.

With the above aim and to further strengthen the good governance practices in the working of police, the Home Ministry has commissioned the Bureau of Police Research and Development to conduct this pan-India survey called the 'All India Citizens Survey of Police Services, another official said.

The survey will be conducted through the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi.

The states and the UTs have been requested to extend full cooperation to the conduct of the survey, and to adopt this good practice and prepare their police for undertaking such surveys on their own in the future, the official said.