Janamaithri Suraksha Project - Kerala Police

The lowest rank is of police constable, where traditionally a high school-level education is required
for appointment. However, constables of Kerala be highly qualified, and perhaps the highestqualified
police personnel in India. This has a historical background. The Travancore State Manual,
by T.K. Velu Pillai (1882-1950) (first published in 1940), mentioned that only literate persons were
recruited in the police force. Men of high education were commonly chosen to fill places in the
subordinate ranks. The document further states that “prominent persons like Mahatma Gandhi
have been so much impressed with the discipline and courtesy exhibited by the generality of the
force that they have thought it fit to give them high compliment by comparing them with London Police.”
Community-Oriented Policing in Kerala
Against the backdrop of such a social milieu, many individual officers of Kerala had
attempted and succeeded in implementing community policing programs. An institutionalized
effort was made on the recommendation of the Justice K.T. Thomas Commission, appointed by
the government of Kerala to suggest police reforms. The report recommended that the government
should implement community policing on an experimental basis. Accordingly the government
asked the police department to prepare and submit a draft scheme. The draft scheme submitted
by the department in 2007 was discussed elaborately at various levels, and based on suggestions/
recommendations by various persons, a final project was prepared by the police department.
The community policing scheme of the Kerala police was named Janamaithri Suraksha
Paddhathi, and initially implemented on an experimental basis in three police station limits, each in
the Kozhikode, Kochi, and Thiruvananthapuram districts. The project was conceived to provide
secu-rity to the community as its prime objective, and the effort of the department was to achieve this
with people’s participation and closer liaison between the police and the general public.
The project is structured so as to facilitate closer community involvement in ensuring security
and safety within communities. The project envisages to achieve the following objectives:
1. To prevent crime
2. Cooperation of the police and the public in security matters
3. To ensure mutual cooperation of members of the public in the domain of security
The project envisaged strengthening the police by seeking support of the local community. It
was not a project aimed at bettering the image of the police, and it was also not a project wherein
police duties were to be performed by the citizens. Rather, it was a project to professionally
strengthen police and increase their accessibility to the needy public through closer interaction with
and better understanding of the public. The responsibility was entrusted to the beat officers, who
were instructed to ensure that all the citizens living in the area were known to the police and
every citizen was acquainted with the beat officers. The project centered around beat officers who
were the police constables/head constables/assistant subinspectors, specially selected and trained.
Beat Officer Duties
The scheme was designed so that for each residential area, forming one Jana Souhrida consisting
of around 1000 houses within an area of 3 km there will be a beat officer. All the duties of the police relating
to patrolling, process service, petition enquiry, verification, collection of public complaints, servicing of
complaint boxes, etc. will be done, subject to proper supervision through such a Beat Officer. It was
also stressed that within two or three months of becoming the beat officer, the concerned police
personnel should personally know at least one member of each family living in his beat, all the roads and
by-lanes in the area, the working habits of the local people, and their special needs on a house-to-house
basis. At least three days a week, the beat officer should be available for an hour or so at a preannounced
place in the beat so that anybody who wants to communicate information to the police station
may meet him there. The beat officer has been provided with a Janamaithri bike specially painted,
depicting the Janamaithri emblem, which makes it easier for everyone to recognize the officer.
The beat officer is also required to maintain a beat register showing the daily activities and
daily transactions with respect to the beat, and such a beat register is examined by the station
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