A special session with Shri Vineet Kumar Goyal (IPS), Commissioner of Police Kolkata
Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) on Saturday organised a special session with Shri Vineet Kumar Goya l(IPS) Commissioner of Police, Kolkata, Shri Murlidhar (IPS) Joint Commissioner Police, Crime and Shri Santosh Pandey (IPS), Joint Commissioner of Police, Traffic.
Shri Namit Bajoria, President (MCCI) presiding over the meeting, congratulated the police for giving tireless effort in maintaining law and order and controlling traffic in the city. But he raised concerns over the increasing pecuniary crimes and cyber crimes that sometimes happened from cross border regions. Bajoria however, cited the National Crime Records Bureau report of 2021, which showed Kolkata as the safest city.
Shri Kumar said major crimes like murders were falling and the city registered 35 murder cases in 2022 against 45 the previous year. He said a network of CCTV cameras was playing a big role in detection of crimes and the number of cases have come down to 103 per lakh last year. In some cases private people also installed CCTV cameras, which helped the police in detecting crimes. He urged the MCCI to expand its network of CCTV cameras, which could further control and curb crimes helping in a good business environment.
Goyal said,” Kolkata excels in traffic control and the entire city’s signaling was controlled centrally through Programming Logic Controller (PLC), which the Kolkata Police first introduced. Israel, he said, was impressed by Kolkata’s traffic control. Cameras, he said, have improved detection of cases and road safety has improved with 99% speed compliance. The Kolkata traffic police have registered 7 fatalities in January this year against 14 during the same month last year. Use of helmets have increased to 95% in Kolkata but the Kolkata Police was trying to cover it to 100%.
He said road space in the city was a constrained since the city had only 7% road space against a requirement of 20% but vehicles were growing by 6% year –on -year.
However, cyber and economic crimes were coming up as major challenges and awareness has to be created among the people so as prevent such crimes.
On curbing drug addicts, Goyal said, his department was running a Suiddhi programme but that needs to be scaled up. The Kolkata Police also ran a programme named Pranam for helping the old people.
