How Akhilesh Yadav's 100 is making a big difference in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh

Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav’s showpiece policing scheme is already showing encouraging results in empowering women in a state notorious for its law and order troubles and gender inequality.

The 3200 ‘UP 100’ Innovas and Boleros of the Uttar Pradesh Police attending emergency calls within 20 minutes across the state in the last 50 days have revealed that domestic violence registered the second highest number of call seeking police assistance.

“While calls around disputes have been the highest at about 60000, what has been surprising is that the second highest number of calls, 23127, was for domestic violence. 51% of the complainants were women victims themselves while 26% complaints were from senior citizens. In some cases, even neighbours called to alert police. Maximum cases were of man beating wife, the family beating the wife and senior citizens getting beaten,” UP Police Additional Director General Anil Agarwal told ET.

The ‘UP 100’ vehicles have attended 2.12 lakh calls in the last 50 days. Of these, 5600-odd calls have been from women complaining of sexual harassment, half of them being assaults, abuse and even a dozen acid attacks. “This is women empowerment in the real sense,” he says. ‘UP 100’ vehicles claim to have saved 59 people from committing suicides in last 50 days after their near and dear ones called cops anticipating such attempts.

The Akhikesh Yadav government has been facing political fire on the state’s law and order situation and women safety and the ‘UP 100’ project is seen as a game-changer. Only women -- 700 youngsters outsourced from Tech Mahindra -- attend the emergency distress calls on 600 telephone lines roundthe-clock at a state-of-the-art control room on the outskirts of Lucknow.

The calls detected as actionable are shifted to a parallel control room manned by 1000-odd policemen who dispatch the closest ‘UP 100’ vehicle to the spot based on GPS tracking. A dedicated fleet of 700 Innovas for urban areas and 2500 Boleros for rural areas with a total of 22275 policemen on board are present all over the state with an aim to reach the spot within 20 minutes in rural areas and 15 minutes in cities.

“In 82% of cases in last 50 days, our vehicles reached the spot within this time-limit, Agarwal said. There were a numerous ‘UP 100’ vehicles on the road all along the road from Delhi to Lucknow cutting through West and Central UP from Delhi to Lucknow. “They are virtually omnipresent,” the ADGP said.

Even the Election Commission has directed that the ‘UP 100’ fleet and personnel will not be diverted for any election duties in the polls bound state. A tour by ET of the ‘Dial 100’ Control Room reveals the maximum calls in the last 50 days came from Lucknow, Allahabad, Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Varanasi, Agra and Gorakhpur in that order.



The maximum calls come between 4:30 PM to 9:30 PM while 31000 calls out of the 2.12 lakh were attended to between 10 pm and 7 am. The entire project cost is Rs 2325 Cr for five years, including capital cost of Rs 800 Cr for land and building, Rs 300 Cr for the vehicles and Rs 150 Cr for computer equipment and IT tools.

“The benefits outweigh the cost. It is empowering the poorest and the down-trodden, who are now assured police will come if they call 100,” Agarwal stresses. The main benefit hence is the declining influence of the netas on police working as earlier the local politician could manage matters at the police station level and police would hardly respond to calls for help at the district level.

“Now all calls come to the Lucknow ‘UP 100’ HQs--each call is recorded and documented - and the same is covered under RTI. If a vehicle does not go, the caller can prove through RTI that he called but help was not given. No incident can hence be swept under the carpet...no neta can manipulate this system,” Agarwal said. The biggest difference is said to be seen in rural areas.

“Earlier, it was impossible for rural people to reach a police entity at night,” Agarwal conceded. A light-and-sound protocol has been laid out to ensure the vehicles flash LED lights at night to make themselves visible to deter criminals. All cops posted on the ‘UP 100’ vehicles were trained for 3 weeks in ‘soft skills.’ Outsourced call attendants are all women with an idea to speak with sympathy and empathy to callers and not with a typical police mindset.

“If we make policemen sit there to attend calls, we fear women may just stop calling in,” says Agarwal. Besides calls, people can also reach the emergency number through Whatsapp and Twitter - a dedicated team at the headquarters looks at that too. Agarwal rattles off success stories like saving kidnappings, effecting 475 arrests and reduction in chain and purse snatching across the state.

“In Mahoba, we even reacted once to a dalit farmer reporting his buffalo being stolen - which we recovered in record time. Once, we retrieved a cobra after we were called for help. The whole project has been executed in 11 months,” Agarwal reminisces.