Pimpri-Chinchwad police will expand the use of drones, body-worn cameras, CCTV, an Integrated Traffic Management System and artificial intelligence after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis urged the force to strengthen crime prevention and detection in the rapidly growing industrial township.
The state government has provided 65 new vehicles, four drones and 350 body-worn cameras to the Pimpri-Chinchwad police commissionerate, Fadnavis said while inaugurating police projects in the city. He also handed over the 7/12 land extract for a 50-acre plot at Tathawade to the police department and laid the foundation stone for construction of the Pimpri police commissionerate.
Fadnavis said Pimpri-Chinchwad could have a larger population than Pune over the next 15 years, increasing the need for technology-supported policing. He said police would have to adopt modern technological solutions and added that work was under way to develop artificial intelligence as an assistant for the police machinery. Investigations into all crimes would be entirely AI-based in the coming years, he said.
The chief minister also said Maharashtra Police ranked first in the country in responding to emergencies. According to his statement, the dial 112 emergency response system had reduced police response time to three minutes, while Pimpri-Chinchwad police ranked first in Maharashtra on this measure.
An independent CCTV project and the Integrated Traffic Management System were launched as part of the commissionerate’s technology expansion. The systems are intended to support policing and traffic management in an urban region where population growth, industrial activity and changing patterns of crime have increased administrative demands.
Pimpri-Chinchwad police commissioner Vinoy Kumar Choubey said the city’s growing population and the changing nature of crime had made maintaining law and order more challenging. The commissionerate now has two additional commissioners of police, while the number of deputy commissioners has increased from three to nine and assistant commissioners from eight to 18.
The number of police stations has risen from 17 to 25, including an independent cyber police station. A separate zone has also been created to secure the industrial area, which is a major part of Pimpri-Chinchwad’s urban and economic geography. Fadnavis inaugurated the office of the deputy commissioner of police for Zone IV during the event.
The chief minister also called for collective efforts to address substance abuse among young people. He said the government was working on awareness programmes, treatment and rehabilitation of addicts, action against drug production and the dismantling of distribution networks. He urged citizens, parents and institutions to participate in the campaign to make neighbourhoods, villages, districts, cities and Maharashtra drug-free.
Police officers and personnel from the commissionerate contributed one day’s salary to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund for drought-affected people in the state, raising Rs 1 crore. The projects and staffing changes announced at the event will now form part of the commissionerate’s expanded policing and emergency-response arrangements.
