VIJAYAWADA: The long wait of police personnel in the State for a weekly off has finally ended. Starting Wednesday, policemen, from constable to the rank of inspector, can avail themselves of one-day weekly off.
Giving this much-need relief from work stress to policemen in the state is one of the pre-poll promises of Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and he was true to his word.
Soon after taking over the reigns, the Jagan government constituted a committee to formulate a plan to provide weekly offs to policemen.
Policemen and officers can take weekly offs on modules prepared based on the Stipendiary Cadet Trainee Police Constable (SAR CPL) escort system.
In a meeting conducted with the committee members on Tuesday, DGP D Gautam Sawang and Additional Director General of Police Ravi Shankar Ayyanar said as many as 19 weekly-off modules were prepared and the staff had a choice of selecting any one of them based on their nature of duties.
During the tenure of Nanduri Sambasiva Rao as DGP, the six-day week (weekly off) was first implemented in Prakasam and Kadapa districts on an experimental basis.
With many policemen requesting implementation of the same across the State, Jagan gave them his promise.
Soon after Jagan took charge as CM on May 30, a committee was constituted to conduct a feasibility study with 21 senior police officials headed by ADGP Ravishankar Ayyanar and asked the team to submit the report at the earliest.
The team studied the working hours of police officials in the commission rates, mandal level police stations, villages, Naxalite-prone areas, court duties, mandatory staff in police stations, clerical staff, petition inquiry officers, bandobust and other duties.
“By creating 19 different modules taking the working style of police into consideration, we have formulated the leave policy for more than 70,000 police personnel working in 957 police stations and other departments such as traffic, special branch, intelligence, etc. We designed the week-off policy in such a way that the duties and responsibilities of police officers remain undisturbed. Due to long working hours, force feels stress and falls prey to heart and kidney-related ailments,” said ADGP Ravi Shakar.