Smart Policing Index 2021

Contact Counsellor

Indian Police Foundation constructed a survey framework to measure citizens’ perceptions from a perspective of public trust in police.
Police in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh scored the lowest among all States when it came to perception of “sensitivity”, according to the survey conducted by the think tank run by retired IPS officers and academics.

The SMART Policing idea was envisioned by PM at the Conference of DGPs of State and Central Police Organizations, held at Guwahati, in the year 2014.
It envisaged systemic changes to transform the Indian Police to be: Strict and Sensitive, Modern and Mobile, Alert and Accountable, Reliable and Responsive, Techno-savvy and Trained (SMART).
The strategy combined the development of physical infrastructure, technology adoption, a focus on the critical soft skills and attitudes, as well as a deep commitment to the values of professional excellence and service to the people.

The purpose of the IPF survey was to gather information on citizens’ perceptions about the impact of the SMART policing initiative.
The survey had 10 sets of questionnaires, which includes the following:

Six indices of “Competence-Based Indicators” dealing with issues such as police sensitivity, accessibility, responsiveness and technology adoption among others;
Three indices of “Value-Based indicators” dealing with integrity of the police; and
One index of “Trust”

The SMART scores are set on a scale of 1 to10 and are indicative of the levels of citizen satisfaction, a score of 10 being the highest level of satisfaction.

Despite being attacked for insufficient sensitivity, declining public confidence and growing concerns about the quality of policing, a majority of citizens (a weighted average of 66.93%) believes that the police are doing their job well and strongly support the police.
Southern states and some in the Northeast fared better on most policing indices compared to states in the north.
The top five states with the highest score on overall policing are Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Assam, Kerala and Sikkim.
From bottom upwards are Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Punjab.