BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposal to bifurcate the existing Mayurbhanj police district and create a new Rairangpur police district with its headquarters at Rairangpur.
With this, the number of police districts in the state rose to 35. Mayurbhanj is the third district to be bifurcated after Sundargarh and Ganjam. Earlier, Rourkela and Berhampur were additional police districts in addition to 30 districts and Bhubaneswar and Cuttack urban police districts.
The decision was taken to ensure effective policing, better administrative coordination, and quicker response to local law and order issues in the geographically large and demographically diverse district of northern Odisha. The newly-created Rairangpur police district will comprise two sub-divisional police offices (SDPOs) at Rairangpur and Karanjia and oversee 14 police stations, five outposts and two beat houses.
Rairangpur, which already serves as a key commercial and administrative hub in the western part of Mayurbhanj, has been chosen as the headquarters for the new police district due to its strategic location and accessibility to the newly assigned police stations.
Chief secretary Manoj Ahuja said the bifurcation is part of the state government’s ongoing efforts to decentralise governance and ensure prompt service delivery, particularly in districts with large geographical areas.
The cabinet also approved the extension of Emergency Response Support System (ERSS), also known as Dial-112, for another five years from 2025-26 to 2029-30 with a total outlay of `2,260.89 crore.
The ERSS is a centralised, technology-driven platform designed to provide integrated emergency services across police, fire and health departments. The proposal for creation of 4,195 new posts across various ranks and procurement of 645 emergency response vehicles (ERVs) were also cleared.
While the personnel will be deployed in operational, technical and support roles to ensure round-the-clock functioning of the ERSS units, the fully-equipped vehicles to be strategically deployed across the state will significantly reduce response times and improve outreach in remote and disaster-prone regions.
This apart, construction of dedicated buildings for the state emergency response centre and mirror emergency response centre were also approved by the cabinet.