The Tribune, April 15, 2000
To lodge FIR, get stationery first
From Raman Mohan
HISAR, April 14 — Charity may begin at home for the lesser mortals, but for the poor cops it begins in the thanas. They have to "pool resources" to buy stationery for routine official work since the stationery supplied by the government is grossly inadequate.
Police sources say that the official stationery sent to the thanas, where most of the voluminous paper work is done, is restricted to paper for filing first information reports and 'zimnies' — the investigation and case progress reports. The rest of the stationery comes from "unofficial sources".
While some officials posted in the police stations maintain that they buy their requirement out of their own pockets per force, others said they " pooled resources" to meet the day to day demands. However, inquiries reveal that the most popular method of collecting stationery is to direct complainants and other sundry visitors to the thanas to bring a few papers or a packet of ball-point pens before they can narrate their tales of woe.
A thana munshi (the clerk of the police station) explained on condition of anonymity that while there was a sufficient supply of official stationery for filing FIRs, they were perennially short of plain-paper, registers, carbon paper and pens. He said four copies of each FIR were prepared on government supplied paper. Once copy is given to the complainant. Of the remaining three, one is retained in the thana, one is sent to the SP and the third to the magistrate concerned. Since FIRs can not be written on any other paper, the use of this paper was limited to writing FIRs.
However, 'zimny' writing consumes a lot of paper because investigations can go on for long. At the beginning of the year, there is no shortage of such paper. But supply exhausts soon as this being the only kind of paper available, it is prone to misuse. This paper is put to use by wireless operators for recording messages. Besides, preparing "road certificates" or simply "road" in police parlance consumes a lot of this type of paper.
The sources say as soon as this supply is exhausted , they have to perforce get the 'zimny' performa xeroxed from the market for which they did not have any funds at their disposal. Likewise, the thana munshis are required to maintain dozens of registers for maintaining various records. The official supply being negligible, they had to "procure" registers from their "own resources".
"How on earth can official stationery be used for a so called "unofficial" report which is never entered in the despatch or receipt registers", countered a DSP when asked about the reasons for " procurement" of stationery.
A senior police officer said most of the departmental stationery was earmarked for the offices of the SPs, DSPs and other officers.
However, he vehemently denied that complainants and visitors were asked to bring in stationery. At the same time he failed to explain why poorly paid cops would buy it from their own pockets.
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