Context:

• The Union Ministry of Home Affairs announced to conduct a pan-India survey called ‘All India Citizens Survey of Police Services’ to gauge public perception of police.
• The survey will be conducted by the Bureau of Police Research and Development with the help of the National Council of Applied Economic Research in a period of nine months.
• The Ministry approved to conduct the survey with an aim to strengthen the model of good governance by acting as a link between the people and the government, considering that a globally accepted way to assess the impact of government initiatives is through public perception surveys.

All India Citizens Survey of Police Services

• The survey will commence in mid March 2019 and will cover a representative sample of 1.2 lakh households spread over 173 districts across the country, based on the National Sample Survey framework.
• All States and Union Territories would be suitably represented in this survey.
• States/UTs have been requested to extend full cooperation to the conduct of the survey, and prepare their Police for undertaking such surveys on their own.
• The survey aims to understand public perceptions and their attitudes about Police.
• It aims to know the level of number of crimes or incidents in which matter is not reported to Police, and also about crime reporting and recording.
• It will assess citizens’ perception and experience about women and children safety.

Significance:

• The outcome of the survey is expected to bring out useful suggestions for government in formulating appropriate policy responses for crime prevention programmes, for transformation in community policing, improvement in the access to the justice and increased resource allocation for police.