New Delhi:
Union Home Minister Amit Shah handed Goa Police the President’s Colour, calling it recognition for eight decades of work by a force he says now sits among the country’s best.
The event in Panaji drew Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and a room full of senior officers, all there to watch a state force that has spent 80 years patrolling one of India’s most visited coastlines pick up one of the highest honours a police unit can get.
Shah leaned into the praise. Goa is small, he said, but it carries a job most states don’t: guard a long, exposed coast and keep millions of tourists safe, year after year.
“The President’s Colour is awarded only to forces with a distinguished record of service, discipline, professionalism and bravery,” he told the gathering.
AI Agent On Cyber Fraud Helpline
The line that got the most attention came almost as an aside. Shah said Goa has become one of the first states in India to put an AI-powered call agent on its national cyber fraud helpline, 1930.
It can take complaints in every language under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. So a tourist from Kerala or Punjab or Bengal can call in, report a scam in their own language, and get routed to the right desk without waiting on a human operator who may not speak it. Shah said the idea was simple: Goa gets flooded with visitors every year, and a lot of them wouldn’t know how to file a complaint in a state that isn’t home.
He also hinted the same system could go national soon as the government’s front line against online financial fraud.
Less Response Time For Emergency Calls
Shah pointed to another number he seemed proud of. The 112 emergency helpline used to take about 18 minutes to reach someone. That’s down to roughly eight minutes now.
Close to 20,000 calls have already gone through the upgraded system, he said, and the state wants to get that number under 6 minutes by adding more patrol vehicles.
Convictions Have More Than Doubled
Shah also spent time on India’s three new criminal laws, which swapped out the old colonial-era codes for something built around forensics and strict investigation deadlines.
Goa, according to him, is ahead of most states in putting the new laws into practice. The numbers he gave back that up: conviction rates went from 23 per cent to 53 per cent in just a year.
“This reflects the efficiency of investigation and prosecution,” he said.
Plan To Get India Off Drugs By 2029
Shah also laid out a roadmap running from 2026 to 2029 for what the government is calling a “Nasha Mukt Bharat,” essentially a push to clear villages and cities of narcotics through joint work between states, police and local communities.
He said he thinks Goa Police, given where it sits and what it’s already done on anti-trafficking, could end up being the model other states follow.
Earlier in the day, Shah also paused to remember officers who died on duty, saying their sacrifice is what the force’s reputation is actually built on.
Eighty years in, for a force that guards one of India’s busiest coastal and tourist states, Sunday was part tribute, part preview of what’s coming.
