The Mumbai Police, in partnership with NASSCOM, on Tuesday launched two 'firsts of their kind in the country' citizen-friendly services, a toll-free Infoline and Citizens Facilitation Centre, at the hands of Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata in a function at the Office of the Commissioner of Police, Crawford Market. The Infoline (1090) initiative is a toll-free number for all non-emergency queries ranging from police verification of passports to the status of stolen vehicles. The service will handle calls through 12 specially-trained policepersons and 30 phone, lines to help citizens with information on traffic diversions, police station details and procedures for licenses.

The Citizens Facilitation Centre (CFC) is a single-window system for citizens for availing information and applying for various purposes from No Objection Certificates to licenses for events, functions and arms. At the function, Tata inaugurated the services in a novel manner: cutting a ribbon virtually on a laptop to loud applause from the audience including several current and former police dignitaries like Julio Ribeiro and MN Singh. He was then shown around the Infoline centre and CFC by the Police Commissioner AN Roy. 

Speaking on the occasion, Tata congratulated the police authorities for the effort, saying that "the ability to access the police force and get an instant response is a very positive move" especially since "we (Mumbai citizens) have come to regard the police force as distant." Praising the move of the Mumbai police, Tata expressed the need for such a service in cities all over India. 

Earlier, in his address to the gathering, Roy said, "We are aware that all successful policing efforts are a result of strong community-police relationship. Our focus is therefore on community-police interaction to provide the citizens' with a time-bound response." Roy also dwelt on the success of the Mumbai Cyber Crime Lab project and spoke about the Mumbai police's proposal to launch a VPN "with co-operation from the tech-world." "We hope to launch the network next month."