Law and order: ‘Safe City project to be completed in Lahore by December’

LAHORE:

The Safe City project will be completed in Lahore by December this year. The government has allocated Rs4 billion for the project, Home Minister Col (retd) Shuja Khanzada said on Saturday.

He was speaking to the media about budgetary allocations for maintenance of law and order in the province.

Khanzada said after its successful implementation in Lahore, the project would be expanded to Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan and Gujranwala districts in 2016.

He said the government hoped to control crime rate in the province with the implementation of the project.

“Funds allocated for the project would be used to purchase state-of-the-art equipment for the police force,” he said.

He said the equipment would include cameras to monitor movement on important roads of the city. He said monitoring through cameras would enable the police to arrest those violating laws in a timely manner.

Khanzada said that under the project 80 police service centres would be set up across the province. He said these centres would help transform culture of policing. “The officials deputed at these centres will be directed to be polite to people approaching them with complaints. The officials will be incentivised to address public grievances. Those performing duties efficiently will be awarded,” he said. The home minister said Rs94.67 billion had been allocated in the budget for the police department. He said funds would be used to hold capacity building programmes for police officers and purchase latest equipment.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2015.