THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Soon, police stations in the state will be ruled by Circle Inspectors. In an important decision to enhance the efficiency of the police force, the government has decided to appoint Circle Inspectors as Station House Officers at 196 police stations in the state. The SHOs will be called Inspectors. The decision is part of the move to make Circle Inspectors the SHOs of all the 471 police stations in the state in a phased manner. In view of this, the Cabinet on Thursday decided to implement the decision in 196 stations. As of now, eight stations have CIs as SHOs.
Currently most of the stations have Sub Inspectors functioning as SHOs. The government is of the view that appointing CIs, who are more experienced in dealing with cases, will help address complex issues.
Out of the 471 stations in the state, 357 have two or more SI rank officers. Of these, 302 officers draw salaries more than that of Circle Inspectors. Hence the government will not have major financial burden in promoting them to higher ranks. Also, the Cabinet decided to redeploy Sub Inspectors from other stations to 13 police stations where there are only one SI rank officer.
With this, law and order will directly come under CIs. Each of them will have at least three Sub Inspectors coming under them. In addition to ensuring law and order within the station limits, traffic duties and crime investigation will also be their responsibilities. The supervisory role so far played by Circle Inspectors will now be handled by DySPs.
Earlier a commission set up to look into improving the efficiency of police, had recommended that CIs should be appointed as SHOs. The top brass of police are of the view that CIs should be made SHOs in the remaining stations too. Meanwhile a section of officers feel it’s a demotion from their position. Currently each CI has at least two stations coming under them. With the new decision, they will be limited to handling one station only.