BENGALURU: The city’s rising crime, population and traffic directly point to the mismatch in the police-to-public ratio as police strength has remained unchanged for years. Despite the growing need for more officers, the government has failed to increase the numbers because of concerns over the higher expenditure involved.
With 3,814 posts vacant, including that of crucial ones like 1,825 police constables (PCs) and 347 police sub-inspectors (PSIs), the shortage has led to various challenges in maintaining law and order and ensuring public safety. Forget vacancies, even the sanctioned police strength is not enough for the city’s current population of 1.4 million.
According to the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), 170 civil police are required per 1 lakh population, suggesting that 21,720 personnel are required to police the city. But the state capital currently has 15,475 policemen and officers, including DCPs and ACPs of Law and Order, Traffic and Special Forces combined, which exposes the substantial gap between the actual staff strength and the ideal numbers.
Ramesh ST, retired DG&IGP, said, “The police force is a human resource-intensive organisation. When technology is upgraded, work becomes more effective and efficiency improves, but numbers are necessary. For example, while patrol vehicles like Hoysala and Cheetahs are increasing, there is a need for more police personnel to operate them.”
He said recruitment should be a constant cycle as there are many cadres in the police force, like civil constables, Armed Reserve etc. The recruitment branch needs to be strengthened with more senior and middle-level officers to forecast and recruit personnel as and when vacancies arise. Vacancies come up every few months because of retirements, deaths, promotions, etc, he said.
The police department must have sent many proposals to the government to increase the sanctioned police strength as crime, population, industrial and student activities, and traffic is increasing every day. There is a mismatch between the city’s growth in all fields and the growth of the police force, which is not keeping pace. The government is slow in augmenting police strength because of budgetary constraints, he added.
A senior police officer said police constables are the ‘ground force of the police department,’ handling all major and minor tasks like court work, crime detection, night beat etc. While PSIs supervise and improve the quality of work effectively in the administration, resolve pending cases, and bring long-undetected cases to a logical end. Increasing and recruiting personnel will distribute the workload and reduce pressure on policemen, he said.