Islamabad Police launch ‘Citizen Service Centre’

Islamabad : The Islamabad Police is all set to launch the much needed ‘Citizen Service Centre’ (CSC) in the heart of the city at the junction of Garden Avenue and the Agha Khan Road in sector F-6/1 Thursday.

If this facility actually performs the tasks it offers on paper, it would turn out to be a huge relief to the people from all walks of life and may become the ‘busiest place’ in town.

Once completed and operationalised the CSC will offer services of issuance of ‘Character Certificate’, ‘Police Clearance Certificate’, ‘Missing/Lost Reporting’, ‘Tenant Registration’, Servant Registration’, ‘Vehicle Verification’, Foreigner Registration’, ‘Learner, Renewal and Duplicate Traffic License’ issuance.

To get any one of these tasks done the public was required to run in all the different directions at the same time in the past and it used to take many a days to accomplish that. It would indeed be a big relief for the general public.

This will be the third big ‘public friendly’ gestures by the Islamabad Police, or may be the fourth. In the past the retired Inspector-General of Police of the Khyber Pakhtoonkhawa, Nasir Khan Durrani, launched the ‘Rescue 15’ the Police Help Line in Islamabad while he was posted in the federal capital as the ‘Senior Superintendent of Police’. The ‘Rescue 15’, is still running effectively because the whole idea was conceived with a pragmatic approach and efficiently implemented.

The second was the launch of the ‘Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP) by the sitting Inspector-General of Police of Islamabad, Dr Sultan Azam Temuri, who at that time was serving as the ‘Senior Superintendent of Police-Traffic’ in Islamabad.

The third was the launch of facility of issuance of ‘International Driving License’ by the former Inspector-General of the National Highways and Motorway Police (NH&MP) Zulfiqar Cheema. The individuals who manage to pass all the tests, theoretical and practical become entitled to get the International Driving Licence, which is valid for driving in a large number of countries all over the world with which Pakistan has signed the protocol in the regard.

And now the launch of this ‘Citizen Service Centre’, providing wide ranging services to general public under one roof is going to be yet another significant public friendly gesture by the Islamabad Police.

However, on a pessimistic note, the turnover of the visitors to this complex, hosting a number of offices dealing with public matters, which is likely to run into thousands daily, it would certainly create a traffic congestion and vehicle parking problem! Something, evidently the planners had not paid attention to.

The Islamabad Police CSC building is scheduled to be completed by the month of November 2018 and that too subject to the release of funds by the government allocated for the project. The total cost of the project is Rs130 million.

The CSC would be a three-storey building including a basement. All the ‘citizen services counters’ as well as the 6 self-service kiosks for citizens to get their services themselves including ‘Character Certificate’, Volunteer Registration’ and the ‘Feedback System’ would be located on the ground floor while the Islamabad Traffic Police have its ‘Driving License Issuance’ department based in the ‘Basement’ and the officers’ offices, conference room, meeting room and the staff offices would be located on the first floor.

The CSC will have internet connections through safe and secure NTC network connected with the main Data Centre and Nadra. The Informational Technology (IT) room would be equipped with six computers having double LCDs, printers and cameras for official use.