Come December, all police stations in Gujarat will have special rooms for visitors to enhance police-public interaction and reduce the inconvenience faced by the common people.

The proposed Citizen Facilitation Centres (CFCs) will be set up in all the 499 police stations in the state under the Centre’s Modernisation of Police Force (MPF) scheme.

“The Centre has approved the Rs 7.5-crore project of establishing CFCs, work on which will start by next month. We propose to cover all the 499 police stations in the state by December this year,” said H N Patel, DIG, Planning and Modernisation.

The proposed centres will be set up in the Police Station Officer (PSO) rooms of the various police stations.

“If the PSO room is not spacious enough, the CFCs will be set up in some other room of the police station,” Patel added.

The state Police Department proposes to spend about Rs 1.5 lakh on each CFC. The money would be spent on buying comfortable couches, water coolers, television sets, artefacts and display materials for the visitors’ room. “Some portion of this money will also be utilised for setting up better reception centres near the CFCs in the police stations,” Patel said.

The project is part of the on-going drive to do an image makeover of the police in the state.

The aim is to bridge the gap between the police and the public and lessen inconvenience faced by those who visit a police station either to lodge a complaint or for some other reasons.

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