The Pune Rural Police enjoy the moments of consummation as the State Government has announced the handsome reward of over Rs. 19 crores to the division for their strong initiative in the Mahatma Gandhi Dispute-Free Village Mission. Under this mission, the Pune Rural Police succeeded in settling down considerable 37,264 cases from October 01, 2009 to April 30, 2010. The State Government authorities conveyed the decision to the PRP on Thursday. The announcement created a wave of elation in the Department.

The PRP has made a mark on the international platform as well. The United Nations organization has sent a letter to Mr.Pratap Dighavkar, the superintendent of Rural Police inviting him to give a presentation on the techniques, system and strategy adopted by the department in order to resolve the cases. Mr. Dighavkar has become the first IPS officer in Maharashtra to be invited to the United Nations Organization to share his techniques with other dignitaries on the international dais. The UN wants to know a lot from him and implement the same techniques to settle the disputes in the city of New York. Mr. Dighavkar will be addressing the dignitaries on 11^th of August.

Mr. Dighavkar has very noble plans with the amount received from the State Government. He wants to open libraries to cultivate good reading habits especially in students. Construction of beautiful gardens and better roads in the district too could be thought of.

Thousands of civil, criminal, revenue and other cases had remained unsettled in the regional courts for years together. The Mahatma Gandhi Dispute-Free Village Mission was an attempt to persuade people to have an out-of-court settlement of their contentions. As a result of the initiative taken by the PRP, almost 50% of the pending cases could be settled within six months. Numbers will prove the point emphatically. There were in all 65,348 cases pending in the court before the mission started. Out of these 37,264 were resolved out-of-court. These include 2862 civil cases, 29,675 criminal, 2,050 revenue and 2,677 other disputes.

Mr. Dighavkar addressed the press conference on Friday. He said, “This is the success of the entire department and is indeed a great achievement. The community participation in the mission made the magic and thus we have excellent results at hand.” He also admired the concept of a Dispute- Free Village. It was because of this mission that the Rural Police Department could instill the confidence among people and most of the cases were pulled out of the court.

Dighavkar also showed his concern about the lengthy court procedures and the number of cases pending in the court. He also appreciated the role played by the Mahatma Gandhi Dispute-Free Village Mission Committee consisting of 26 members and advocated the need of the same initiative to be taken in the future as well.

- Yogesh Sapre