NEW DELHI: A 222-page report, ‘Manpower Assessment of Delhi Police’ by Joint Commissioner of Police Sanjay Beniwal prepared over 14 months by studying all the capital’s 161 police stations has pointed out that acute manpower shortage, duty fatigue and desertions are leading to increasing instances of corruption among cops.
Says Beniwal, “Cops eventually look for easy money. Secondly, because of the inordinate delay in promotions, transfers and postings, Delhi’s poorly paid lawmen look for other avenues. On an average it takes at least 27 years for a constable to make it to head constable and 18 years on an average for a head constable to become an assistant sub inspector, the same for ASIs to get inspector rank. It takes 18 to 20 years for an inspector to be promoted to assistant commissioner. Police sources say that around 20,000 constables and 10,000 head constables are awaiting promotion as well as 1,500 inspectors, 2,000 sub-inspectors and 400 ASI’s. “These are needs which should be looked into on an urgent basis to make Delhi Police an effective urban force,” adds Beniwal.
Demoralised educated young cops dropping out of active policing is another problem faced by the organisation. During the recruitment of sub-inspectors two years ago, 44 were over qualified. Fourteen engineers, including an MTech, and 15 MBAs were among the candidates. Fifty-two of them had completed their MAs, 10 had MSc degrees, seven were law graduates, four were MComs, three were BPharms, two were MEds and one was BPEd. They had joined the force with the desire to make changes in the system. But they soon applied for transfers to the Economic Offences Wing, Security, Intelligence and Police Control Rooms, where the working conditions are better. “With no proper distribution of work and men at police stations, things are bound to be bad, and policemen gradually become corrupt,” says Beniwal. He feels that honest cops avoid postings at police stations.
UNDERSTAFFED AND UNDERPAID: This is not surprising because no shift system is in place for beat constables. They are on duty 24/7 in their allocated beat areas, and are rarely transferred. It is mandatory for beat cops to take accident victims and unclaimed corpses to hospitals and morgues but are not provided “sundry expenses” and hence have to pay from their own pocket. Senior officers told this newspaper that this is a leading reason for corruption. “When the force gets the adequate number of personnel, a beat constable can work in three shifts under constant monitoring of senior officers. The satisfaction level would also rise.” The Beniwal report highlights how acute shortage of personnel—Delhi’s required strength is 1.16 lakh cops while the current strength is only 30,891—has taken a toll on the day-to-day performance of policemen, leading to corruption and below par policing in the city.
The strength of Delhi’s police force is 77,894, out of which 30,891 are deployed in 161 police stations spread across 11 police districts to handle the needs of Delhi’s 1.72 crore population. The rest serve in various departments of the force. Currently, the active duty ratio is one policeman for 5,568 Delhiites. The Bureau of Police Research and Development recommends one cop for 568 people. Delhi’s crime rate has shot up this year. The count of 460.75 criminal cases per lakh Delhiites in 2013 has increased to 809.68 per lakh this year—a rise of over 110 per cent compared to last year’s. The report also highlights that all of Delhi’s 161 police stations need facelifts and restructuring.
UNACCOUNTED JOBS LEADS TO POLICE PARALYSIS: The Beniwal report states that the biggest drawback to effective law enforcement is that a large number of cops are engaged in “unaccounted jobs”, like VVIP movement, checking overflowing sewage, servant verification, attending petty civil complaints and providing security to schools and local functions (from flower shows to charity sports meet). Beniwal observes that officers at police stations are engaged in three kinds of work—Statutory, Operational and Unaccountable. Statutory duty implies that staff is required to handle station security, lockup security, emergency duty, maintenance of records, malkhana, Juvenile Welfare, process-service, pairvi, naib court, women’s help desk, CIPA, CCTV monitoring, mess maintenance and also function as duty officers. Operational duties concern beat patrolling, investigation, deployment of staff at pickets and beat boxes and enquiry into complaints. Unaccounted duties concern maintaining law and order, training rookies and handling petty issues like checking drains, lampposts and power transformers. “In a police station, approximately 40 per cent of the unaccounted work is performed by the staff, which is taking a huge toll on performance,” the report states. It further argues that police personnel are bound to engage in petty matters such as guarding accident vehicles, which are not removed by their owners or insurance companies. Ensuring that there is adequate protection to water tankers, which are supplied during water shortages and pacifying agitated people during that time is also part of Unaccounted duties.
SKEWED NORMS LEAD TO UNDERPERFORMANCE: A case in point is the Defence Colony police station. 7.5 lakh live in the area. Last year, the station received 1,399 complaints, attended 4,437 crisis calls forwarded from the PCR vans and probed 344 IPC offences. This year, the number of cases has risen to around 1,000. But there are just 173 police officers posted there to handle these, apart from doing Unaccounted jobs which occupies 40 per cent of police time are handled by 150 cops leaving just 23 for dedicated police work. “Ideally, there should be 508 policemen posted at the Defence Colony police station,” the report states. “On an average, in each police station there are only seven investigative officers to handle around 115 criminal cases a year, and hence they fail to do justice to the investigation,” says Beniwal. The report compares investigation details of other agencies to bolster its claim; in the CBI a fresh case is given to the concerned Investigating Officer only after he has completed his investigation, which is not the case with Delhi Police. “We then examined the norms existing in the Directorate of Enforcement. We found that on an average 14 cases per year are investigated by a team investigative team of three members. However, the enforcement cases are very complex and of one variety and extending that norm to the district police would exaggerate the requirement of the Investigating Officers,” the study states.
According to the report a Delhi Police investigative team comprising one sub-inspector, one head constable and a single constable can only probe 40-50 cases in a year. There are seven teams in one police station and hence, only 350 cases can be investigated in a year. The report clearly states that there is an acute shortage of manpower and Delhi police stations needs 1,16,546 personnel. “The shortage of manpower has led to various huge problems like below the par investigation and corruption,” said the officer.
The Beniwal report quotes directions laid out by Supreme Court on September 22, 2006 in the ‘Prakash Singh Vs. UOI and others’ case. “The Apex court has given clear directions on police reform that there should be separate staff to deal with investigation and law and order in police stations. In various judgments in January 2013, the Supreme Court has also directed that there should be separate Juvenile Welfare officers and Women Help Desk,” the report states. In such a dismal situation where Investigating Officers in criminal cases are also forced to poke around drains and do servant verification, the report is clear that if corrections are not made speedily, the two Cs that plague the police—Corruption and Crime—is bound to rise steadily.
“Handling of oral complaints, submitting of written report, submitting of report under preventive sections, submitting of report on the basis of which a criminal case is registered, we are of the view that a Complaints and Grievance Redressal Unit can be constituted in each police station under the direct supervision of the SHO.”
“The norms of staffing ‘Beats’ in a Police Station need to be re-examined in the light of separation of ‘Investigation’ and ‘Law & Order’.”