UP police to get active on social media, will launch Twitter-based grievances redressal service

Happy with its response on social media platforms, Uttar Pradesh Police is all set to become the first state in the country to have its own Twitter-based grievances redressal service.

"DGP Javeed Ahmad and Twitter vice president Rishi Jaitley and CEO Rahil Khurshid will launch the service from the state capital tomorrow," additional superintendent of police, DGP office, Rahul Srivastava told PTI.

Asserting that a similar service was launched in Bengaluru but for a limited region, the DGP said, "UP will be the first state in the country, where Twitter will be used at all its police stations to redress grievances of people and to have better connect with them."

UP police was earlier asked to increase its presence and activity on social media with the a view to have better connect with the common man. The officers were directed to maintain a Twitter account and keep a track of activity or action taken in their area on their Twitter handles.

Twitter service has been launched by the Centre for important departments like External Affairs, Railways and Commerce. About the service, Srivastava said this is Twitter-based customer relation management platform in which, through a software, complaints will be forwarded to the concerned districts and a particular code will be generated for a complaint.

Through these codes, complaints will be later tracked, he said, adding, "It will also help the command centre in Lucknow to know about the status of complaints on the click of a mouse."

"The social media platform has become an important and effective tool to reach out to people and connect with them. Thus, its the need of the hour to adopt technology and use the platform," Ahmad said. The DGP has already asked district police chiefs to open twitter accounts in the name of the concerned district police and configure it with respective CUG mobiles of SPs. "The updates of twitter thus will directly be monitored by the SPs and they will be able to feel the pulse of people and keep a tab on activities of their juniors too," the DGP said.

For uniformity, the district police have been asked to use design and header used by @Uppolice, which already has 45.9K followers. The state police had last week organised a training session to familiarise the officials with social media and its benefits.

--With PTI inputs