Drishti: A low-cost videoconferencing platform for district policing
- The Indian Police Journal
- 68(3), Jul-Sep, 2021: p.52-61
Policing all over the world is a profession in which the police personnel has to respond quickly to the emergency within hours or even within minutes. For this, the police need to have devices for quick means of communication. We have been using the technology of radio wireless communication for a long time. They have been helpful in such emergencies. But this radio wireless communication technique has not proved to be very robust and very effective when we need to conduct a meeting without actually wanting the staff to come face to face. As a solution to this, Ayodhya police envisaged project Drishti in which the officers could conduct crime meetings and performance review meetings over video-conferencing. It had two advantages over wireless communication. Firstly, unlike a radio wireless set, it provides two-way simultaneous communication. In radio communication, only one person can speak at a time and the recipient of the voice message can’t reply unless the speaker on the other side is done with his message. Secondly, in video-conferencing, a person is visible as well as audible. Therefore, it becomes better to judge his body language and his responses over video conferencing and offers a better medium to conduct crime meetings/performance review meetings. We propose to solve the age-old system of meeting/training/ public grievance leading to wastage of man-hours, fuel, finance. For this, Ayodhya police deployed an ultra-low-cost video conferencing system ‘DRISHTI’ connecting all 18 police stations, 6 circle offices, 3 additional SP offices, Superintendent of Police office for regular crime meetings, performance review meetings, training, and capacity building,and public grievance redressal. Going ahead with this project, we set up 30 video-conferencing terminals. Started using it in January 2020 for district Ayodhya, the Drishti initiative ensured various benefits to the Ayodhya police organization. A few of them which can be cited are as following: saving of the public exchequer’s money, citizen’s access to the officers was eased, saving of the traveling time, saving of the fuel expenditure, being environmentally friendly and it had psychological implications as well. Further, it had helped provide the online training along with ensuring transparency and accountability. Drishti platform proved to be a boon during the corona crisis and it had helped in ensuring administrative efficiency along with maintaining social distancing. – Reproduced
Video-conferencing, Public exchequer, Citizen’s perspective, Organizational efficiency, Fuel expenditure, Capacity building, Transparency and accountability, Corona pandemic, Police response vehicles.