Nongpok Sekmai in Manipur chosen as country's best police station

Nongpok Sekmai in Manipur's Thoubal district, AWPS-Suramangalam in Tamil Nadu's Salem and Kharsang in Arunachal Pradesh's Changlang district were chosen as top-three police stations in the country, the Ministry of Home Affairs said on Thursday.

Jhilmili (Bhaiya Thana) in Chhattisgarh, Sanguem in Goa, Kalighat in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Pakyong in Sikkim, Kanth (Moradabad) in Uttar Pradesh, Khanvel in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Jammikunta Town in Telangana's Karimnagar district were also in the top-ten police stations in that, the MHA said.

The government selects best performing police stations across the country every year, to incentivize more effective functioning of police stations and bring healthy competition among them, a statement said.

The MHA had started giving awards to best police stations following a suggestion from Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing the Directors General of Police during the 2015 Conference in Gujarat's Kutch. Modi had then said that parameters should be laid down for grading police stations and assessing their performance based on feedback.

The statement said this year's survey for best police stations was conducted under challenging circumstances due to Covid-19 and it was difficult to access police stations located in remote areas due to various restrictions on movement.

Home Minister Amit Shah has said that a vast majority of police stations short-listed from the thousands of police stations in the country were located in small towns and rural areas.

"This is also true for those police stations which have been ranked among the top 10. This indicates that while the availability of resources is important, more important is the dedication and sincerity of our police personnel to prevent and control crime and serve the nation," Shah was quoted as saying in the statement.

The objective was to rank the top 10 out of 16,671 police stations in the country through data analysis, direct observation and public feedback.

The ranking process commenced with shortlisting of the best-performing police stations in each state on the basis of addressing property offence, crime against women, crime against weaker sections, missing persons, unidentified found persons and unidentified dead bodies.

Following this, 75 police stations were shortlisted from which 10 police stations were chosen on the basis of 19 parameters.