Kolkata (West Bengal): The sergeants of Kolkata Police are not just the unique features of the city. But in the true sense, they are the lifeline of the complicated traffic management system of Kolkata.
In this crucial job, walkie-talkies are their main weapon of communication. These sergeants will now be provided with new and sophisticated walkie-talkies with special features where every record will be maintained of each communication from the sergeant concerned to traffic guards or from one sergeant to the other. This will be done so that the recipient of the communication cannot shy away or dodge responsibilities with the excuse that they missed the communication.
“Suppose a sergeant deployed at the Shyambazar Five Point crossing sends a message to a traffic guard deployed at RG Kar Road to look into a situation where a truck is creating traffic commission at Paikpara crossing. However, the one who had been sent the message doges the responsibility claiming that either he missed the communication or could not understand that communication. This is possible because the present walkie-talkies that are being used by the sergeants do not have any communication recording system. But soon no one can escape by cleverly dodging responsibilities. We have decided to arm our sergeants with high-end and more sophisticated walkie-talkies with additional features like a communication recording system,” said a senior official of the city police on condition of anonymity.
Read: Another JMB terrorist arrested near Kolkata
City police sources said that as it is for the last couple of years the sergeants had been complaining of the old walkie-talkie sets. “The main problem is that often the communications sent through the walkie-talkies are extremely muffled. This muffled communication often leads to problems in understanding the communication. These sets need to be changed immediately,” said a sergeant associated with Bidyasagar Traffic Guard.
In rank, a sergeant is equivalent to a sub-inspector. The only difference is that while the nature of the duty of an officer in the rank of sub-inspector is “investigative”, the nature of duty for a sergeant is non- investigative. So being in the non-investigative category, the promotion prospects for sergeants are slightly slower than sub-inspectors.
Another sergeant from the North Kolkata Traffic Guard said that the batteries of the old set drain out fast and then circuits in the set stop functioning. “These technical difficulties make the communications muffled. So even though we send the warning communication in time, the recipients of the communication often fail to understand that while some dodge the responsibility on the pretext of not understanding it. So often the sender of the communication faces difficulty in making his higher officials understand that he had sent the message in time,” he said.
So to avoid such complications, the city police department has decided to change the old walkie-talkie sets. The city police authorities are also talking to a private manufacturer for that purpose. “The stress will be on the proper recording of all the communications done on these sets,” a city police official said.
Read: PM Modi unable to accept his loss, running political vendetta against Bengal: Mamata Banerjee
