Calcutta police organised an interface with the aged at Madhusudan Mancha on Sundayin a bid to to serve them better.

The session, described as the first of its kind, offered a group of 200 aged men and women a chance to ask questions to police commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti and tell him their problems.

The participants shared their problems — from loneliness to acute pain in the knees — and requested Chakrabarti to “do something”. Most of the problems had nothing to do with the police.

The police decided to organise the interactive session after coming up with a plan to create a data bank about elderly people across the city.

A pilot project, named Security with Dignity, was started with the assistance of Dignity Foundation, an NGO. It was decided, officers would go from house to house, collecting details of the elderly living there and telling them how to contact the police when in need.

A representative of the NGO said trained volunteers would be visiting the houses of the aged and organising adda sessions for them so that they do not feel lonely.

The commissioner told a participant suffering from memory loss that police will provide him an identity card.