BENGALURU: The Traffic Police Department has decided to provide some relief to traffic constables who had complained of being short-staffed, stressed with no weekly offs and endless working hours.
Addressing a meeting with senior traffic officers, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) R Hitendra reprimanded the officers. He not only warned the officers for not giving weekly offs to constables, but made one weekly off mandatory.
“From now on, whether the constable wants it or not, one weekly off is compulsory. There were cases where officers had not given them weekly offs for various reasons. Such officers were warned,” a senior traffic police officer told Express.
The meeting with 21 officers included ACPs and DCPs of all traffic zones and a few inspectors from specific traffic police stations. They found that more than 70% of the constables did not get a weekly off even once a month. They were often called to work on their’ rare’ holidays for emergency work.
The meeting also decided to fix eight-hour shifts.
Meanwhile, to address the issue of being short staffed, the department has recruited 400 traffic constables. “With ongoing metro and road works and increasing traffic woes, it was very difficult to not only assign more constables but also give them less working hours. This move of recruiting more constables has really helped us,”said another senior traffic police.
The decisions were taken by the department after traffic police constables from various stations complained to the Additional Commissioner of traffic of discharging their duties at the expense of maintaining order in their own lives. A letter, with a list of complaints, was submitted recently.
This move has been appreciated by the traffic constables. “It is an excellent move. There have been days when we have worked for more than 14 to 16 hours continuously,” said a traffic constable from Madiwala Station.
“There have been instances where traffic police are shifted like tennis balls. From one area to another we keep moving whenever there’s political movement. Elections, road work, metro work, personal tragedies, we are needed everywhere. It is extremely tough to work like this. My wife threatened to leave me if I continued to work in this condition,” grieved a constable from Indiranagar.
“All of this takes a toll on their moral, motivation and self-esteem. Their overall behaviour with the public is probably a manifestation of their poor working conditions,” opined Radhakrishna M, a senior citizen who has worked towards conducting stress relief camps for traffic personnel.
