LUNCH WITH BS: A N Roy

The people's officer

A N Roy

Most advised him extra security after his 7/11 allegations, but Mumbai's top cop still goes for his walks unescorted and his family commutes by local trains

Anami Narayan Roy has been transferred 23 times in his 33-year career. One of these orders came just a few days before his first child was born, and the next when the baby was a week-old, writes Shyamal Majumdar.

But the Mumbai Police Commissioner refers to these transfer orders almost like a badge of honour "" as examples of his integrity, and ability to shout back at those people who are powerful but don't play fair. We are at the Mumbai Police headquarters "" a magnificent Indo-Saracenic structure that looks incongruous amidst the row of shops in the city's busy Crawford Market area.

It's quite a novel experience "" the city's top cop serving food himself, while the constables wait in attendance. The food is an elaborate mix of Punjabi and Chinese dishes "" soup, rotis, fried rice, chilly chicken, dal and fish with mustard.

His office is the venue for the lunch, as Roy is terribly busy these days in wrapping up the investigations into the 7/11 blasts. His phone, Roy says, has never stopped ringing ever since he blamed Pakistan's ISI for the blood on Mumbai's railway tracks.

Everyone has been advising him to go in for additional security, as he has dared to take on Pakistan, but the commissioner has ignored them so far, preferring to go on his morning walks unescorted. And his two daughters still prefer to go to office by local trains. For two reasons: one, he wants to avoid the trappings of power as much as possible; and two, he believes Mumbai is still the safest city in India "" if not in the world.

"Where else would you see people like Ratan Tata driving his Merc late in the night unescorted. Mr Tata has refused police or private security for himself. Or, take Anil Ambani. The third-richest Indian (Roy has their net worth figures at his fingertips) drives with his wife and children without any security well after midnight. If the rich and the famous don't feel the need for any security in this city, there is no reason why a modest government officer like me should need one," Roy says, filling my plate generously with mustard fish.

People often mistake him for a Bengali going by his surname. He is actually a kayasth from Uttar Pradesh and his surname, Srivastav, was never used. His forefathers got the title, Rai, which got changed to Roy somewhere down the line.

He was the only police officer perhaps to have openly admitted that the crime graph in the city has been rising. Roy says it is only natural. "If everything is growing "" the GDP, the population and so on "" it's unrealistic to expect only the crime graph to decline." According to him, too much importance to factors like the crime graph would only prompt officers not to report crimes, and this doesn't help anybody. More than statistics, what's more important is to make the system work and give the citizens an overall sense of safety.

Roy believes policing can succeed only if it is made a "people's project" in a city like Mumbai which has such a large floating population, huge slums, a large minority community and an overburdened transport infrastructure.

The commissioner then proceeds to give a fascinating account of the changes he has brought in the functioning of the Mumbai police, which takes care of 16 million people with just around 500 vehicles. Compare this with New York, which has over 4,000 vehicles for 8 million citizens.

He sees his job as that of a people's CEO who takes care of his customers (the 16 million citizens of Mumbai) with the help of a highly-motivated workforce (the constables). "No CEO in India has unlimited resources at his command. So the idea is optimum utilisation of resources through well-planned customer segmentation," Roy says.

That explains, for example, his initiative to set up slum police panchayats. Launched in partnership with a few NGOs, the 130 panchayats have helped establish a one-on-one equation between the police and people where it matters the most "" in places where over 55 per cent of Mumbaikars live.

Roy has introduced many other such customer-friendly measures. There are service counters in his office, which give single window and time-bound clearance to all kinds of documents that citizens want "" be it gun licences or passports. The Mumbai police call centre, which has got ISO 9000 quality certification, plays a significant role in this. "Dial 100 for any problems you have. The constables who run these call centres can give any of their private sector counterparts a run for their money," Roy says, adding onions to the chilly chicken he seems to be especially fond of.

Some of the police stations in Mumbai have also gone in for ISO 9000 certification, improving their customer-friendliness. Besides, this creates a healthy internal competition "" just like the best practices in any private company.

An anxious constable who looks worried perhaps because his boss has exceeded the time limit for the lunch serves the dessert "" a huge chocolate cake. But Roy doesn't seem to be too worried on this count.

CEOs of Indian companies could also perhaps take a leaf out of Roy's books in the way he has gone about improving staff morale through health insurance schemes (every police person is entitled to a smart card which enables cashless treatment in the city's best hospitals), setting up of Police Public Schools (the first such school giving subsidised education will come up in the city by June next year) and housing schemes (this will assure cheap loans but is awaiting clearance).

The time for the next meeting has long been crossed, but Roy doesn't mind that. The biggest satisfaction that his job has given him is the ability to make a difference to some people's lives "" sometimes through just a phone call. And this is what makes all the troubles worth it "" the 16-hour daily grind, the compulsion of remaining a passive reader (his daughters keep him informed about the interesting stuff that they have read), and even the frequent transfers.

As he guides me to the lobby where the constables are saluting me vigorously, Roy says he would take just 15 minutes to hand over charge if he is asked to proceed on his 24th transfer.