Nearly 1,000 Special Police Officers (SPOs) will be at the disposal of the Hyderabad and Cyberabad police for conducting the elections and also for regular policing.
With the term of the recruited SPOs coming to an end this month, the government has extended the time frame to utilise the services of the SPOs till March next year or till the regular recruitment of police constables takes place completely.
With elections round the corner and regular recruitment of police constables getting delayed, the police department had sought the government’s permission to extend the time limit to utilise the services of the SPOs for two more years (till March 2011).
The government has, however, gave permission for only one-year extension of their services.
Ever since the government allowed the police in 2007 to engage the services of ex-servicemen as SPOs in regular policing, the SPOs have been playing a crucial role in routine as well as anti-sabotage checks and frisking, bandobust duties, etc.
The recruitment of SPOs was neccesiated following the terror attacks in the city in May and August 2007. With city police lacking adequate manpower to take up massive anti-sabotage checks, frisking and checkings, ex-servicemen were hired.
The government had initially permitted the Hyderabad city police to hire 1,000 ex-servicemen as Special Police Officers till March 2008 and, later, shifted 300 of them to the Cyberabad Commissionerate.
The SPOs are currently being paid a honorarium of Rs 7,500 a month.
Recently, an SPO, KS Raju, laid down his life while on duty when activists of Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS) tried to set ablaze the State Congress headquarters, Gandhi Bhavan, in the city recently.