Mumbai Police's daily bulletin goes fully digital, to end 100-year print run

The Mumbai Police is embracing the end of an era On June 1 it will break away from a 100yearold tradition mdash the first in the state to do so mdash with digitisation of its daily bulletinSelective reading The online version of the daily bulletin will offer police personnel the choice to only select parts they are interested in PicsPradeep DhivarThe bulletin will be hosted on a virtual private network platform and will be part of the criminal analysis information system a special software program generated for the police department using JavaScript stored procedures with Oracle database The move is part of a larger ambitious project of the state government to digitise the police force Commissioner of Police Dattatray Padsalgikar told midday in an exclusive chat on Friday We have already got a network in place for highspeed connectivity with all branches of the Mumbai Police including elite forces and special branches300 copiesThe daily bulletin is to every police personnel what the morning cuppa is to a caffeine junkie one just cannot start the day without it It lists orders and special instructions including details on transfers achievements rewards and good detections The bulletin can run anywhere from 40 pages to almost 100 pages on special days Around 300 sets of the bulletins are circulated on special vans early morning to all 93 police stations side branches special units and all senior police officers said Padsalgikar The circulation is a mammoth task consuming much time paper and manpowerThe big picture Commissioner of Police Dattatray Padsalgikar says the move is a small step towards turning the entire operations paperlessNot just the noticeUnder the new setup the bulletin will be uploaded every midnight said the top cop All police units have been informed about it The switch has sent a ripple of excitement in the police force On Wednesday I visited the Saki Naka police station and the head constable there was eager to know if the new online system will also have the facility to upload local regionwise interdepartmental communication When I told him it does he was too excited The new system will help him save time and effort spent on visiting the office of the additional commissioner or the zonal DCP or ACP Besides orders and messages can be passed between superiors and their subordinates quicklyThe move is a baby step towards the big picture mdash turning the entire operations paperless We also have plans to set up digital kiosks at all police stations so that intranet facility will be available at every police personnels fingertips said Padsalgikar Digitisation will help bridge the gap between the public and the police and offer prompt and quality service he said We have to keep up with the changing trends in societyGetting used to itTo brace for teething troubles while all police personnel get used to the new online system a set of bulletins will also be emailed in the PDF format to all the police officials whose email addresses have been stored in the official database said a police officer working on the projectGoing digitalgt Each police official of and above the rank of inspector will be given a user ID and password to access the bulletingt All 12 police zones have been assigned a police constable trained to operate a computer who will in turn train other police personnel at the station in using the criminal analysis information system programgt The daily bulletin will be uploaded via this program and it can be saved locallygt The system also offers the option of filters allowing a personnel to select a particular segment within the bulletin that she wishes to read rather than going through all the pages Servers of 10 GB have been procured to store the mammothgt Assistant Inspector Pramod Sawant and his team from the computer cell of the Mumbai Police will provide the software and hardware support for the entire department while the responsibility of uploading the content online will rest with Inspector Subhash Dagadkhair and team from the police notice department