To induct additional CP, DCP to tackle traffic woes in Pune: Maharashtra Dy CM Devendra Fadnavis

In response to the growing traffic congestion in Pune city, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced the appointment of an Additional Police Commissioner and a Deputy Commissioner of Police to tackle the increasing traffic woes in the city.

The Additional Commissioner Rank officer will head the traffic department. There will also be two DCP Rank officers who will take care of the traffic situation in the city. Currently, the traffic department is headed by the DCP rank officer in the city.

Devendra Fadnavis was speaking at the event organized by the state home department to inaugurate and perform Bhumipujan of various infra projects for the police department in Pune.

Pimpri Chinchwad and Thane Palghar, projects include the creation of seven new police stations: Ambegaon, Nanded City, Baner, Kharadi, Wagholi, Kalepadal and Fursungi. 816 new posts in Pune City Police for these police stations and other departments will be created.

While addressing the police personnel at the event, Devendra Fadnavis said, "We had also started ATMS for better traffic management system and integration of ATMS and Police CCTVs are very important. Recently we have also signed a contract with Google in Pune to help us use AI for quality policing using these CCTVs. This will also help us in Traffic management to ease traffic congestion and diversion using AI. We will also deploy drones for it and after integrating drone cameras under this, we could also manage various law and order situations, political and festival processions etc."

Devendra Fadnavis said Pune's rapid urbanization needs quality reforms in policing in the city.

He said, "Pune is being seen as the centre point of the economy in the state. Pune has become the manufacturing capital, technology capital and start-up capital. Pune has become a very important district. Now the urbanization in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad part of the district is growing rapidly. Therefore when urbanization grows, challenges also increase..People with different mindsets come to the city. Some criminal minds also grow and crime increases. Thus the need for qualitative reform in policing also increases."

He also added, "Policing framework which decides the number of police personnel per citizen was done in 1960. It never changed since then but in 2023 we have made a new framework resulting in making new police stations and posts. Earlier the state was not building any police stations. In 2014 after I had taken charge of the home department after coming in power I started building new police stations as per new requirements. Today we are opening seven police stations in one single day in one city along with sufficient staff. It is a record, the aim is to give quality policing to the citizen."

He also spoke about the need for CCTV Surveillance and Policing in growing cities.

"We are also starting phase 2 projects of installing CCTVs in Pune. To make cities safe we have to have a huge network of CCTVs across the cities be it Mumbai Pune Nagpur etc, in this second phase of the CCTV project 2886 cameras will be installed. This includes face recognition cameras and vehicle number plate recognition cameras. These CCTVs not only increase surveillance but also help in making technical evidence after any crime. This project in Pune is worth around 433 cr rupees."