Friday, January 7, 2011

Senior cops refuse to forgo 'orderly' luxury

Senior cops refuse to forgo 'orderly' luxury

Vinay Madhav, TNN Jan 6, 2011, 07.49am IST
BANGALORE: They are trained in crime detection, handling law and order situations and traffic management but end up by cutting vegetables, doing dishes, washing and gardening in senior officers' homes. Efforts to abolish this system, a legacy of British Raj's `koi hai,' glory days have come to naught in 21st century Karnataka's police force.
And it costs the exchequer a packet. If one goes by police manual's sanctioned posts (3,000), the cost is a whopping Rs 4.5 crore monthly. But police department's records show only 1,000 constables posted as orderlies. Even that works out to Rs 1.5 crore spent per month on providing domestic staff to police officials.
It's not just constables, but also head constables who are posted as orderlies to the houses of senior police officials. However, this is apart from the car drivers and escort personnel provided to the senior police officerss.

REFORM EFFORTS STONEWALLED

A recent effort to reform police force by doing away with orderlies and publishing assets and liabilities of police on website faced stiff resistance from senior IPS officers and was dropped. The idea was mooted by DG&IGP Ajai Kumar Singh, who placed it before the senior officers. Admitting that he had to drop the idea following resistance from officers, he told TOI: "Before forming committee to implement the proposals, we wanted to elicit opinion of senior police officers. About publishing assets and liabilities on the website, most of the officers pointed out that there were no rules for that. The Lokayukta made a similar such proposal to IAS officers which too was shelved.''
When it came to doing away with orderlies, the problem was that the Karnataka Police Manual itself has a provision for that. "In the first place, we have to make amendments to the manual. Secondly, most of the police officers wanted to know what would be the alternative for orderlies. It may take some more time before every one starts accepting the idea," he added.