The Uttar Pradesh police drive to make servant verification compulsory has failed to take off in Noida with many residents and even the cops remaining unaware of the development.

Gurgaon model

In the aftermath of Arushi-Hemraj murder cases, the Noida police had sent teams to Gurgaon to study the verification procedure being conducted by the cops there. Following this, the Noida police formed a verification cell to prepare a database and sought the District Magistrate's help.

SP (City) Ashok Tripathi said, "It's very difficult to implement this (servant verification programme) at one go. The citizens of Noida lack awareness."    

"We are doing it with the help of Residents' Welfare Association (RWA). Though a verification cell has been formed but till now we have received just 50-60 forms. There is no assured time limit as Noida is very big," Tripathi said

However, acting President of Sec-19 RWA, RC Gupta disagrees with the SP. He blamed the police for the 'improper' implementation of the verification cell. "We had a meeting only once with the SP regarding this but no serious steps were taken.

When the residents go there to collect the verification form it wasn't available. Enough forms were not given to us also so that we could distribute them among residents," Gupta said.

Ajit Kumar, an electronics engineer, who had employed Lalit as a domestic help two years ago, could not get his antecedents verified. Ajit fears that something untoward may happen.

The increase in crime involving domestic helps in Noida has left Ajit very insecure. He says, "I have no other option but to take risk. One of my domestic helps ran the day after I went to apply for his verification. This time I can't take the risk."

The police also plan to computerise all the database of the domestic servants.