City police chief cites shortage of personnel for night patrolling

City police chief cites shortage of personnel for night patrolling

The Hindu

Police station-level Citizens' Committee meetings to be revived

# Bangalore City police have only 15,000 personnel
# `It is becoming difficult to drive with good road manners'

BANGALORE: Commissioner of Police N. Achuta Rao on Thursday said the police would revive citizens' committee meetings at police station levels for better coordination among the police and the public.

Senior police officers would participate in such meetings along with officials of other departments concerned with civic issues, said Mr. Rao while interacting with members of the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI) here.

He was responding to a suggestion by FKCCI's Civic Affairs Committee Chairman S. Ejaz Ahmed that the meetings had become irregular. Such meetings, Mr. Ahmed said, would solve many area-concerned problems.

He said the department's proposal to make it mandatory for hotels, guest houses, paying guest accommodations, serviced apartments and land lords to register the names of guests and tenants with the police was examined by the Legal Department to enact a law.

On suggestions to intensify night patrolling and introduce tourism police, the Commissioner said the city police had been working beyond their limits.

While there were only 15,000 personnel with Bangalore City Police, Delhi Police had 54,000 personnel and Mumbai police had 44,000 personnel with a further sanction to recruit 50,000 more.

Traffic woes

Reacting to traffic-related woes, Mr. Rao said the ever-growing city and all roads leading to the Central Business District were the reasons for it.

While many flyovers had come up and connecting arterial roads had been widened in Hyderabad in the last 10 years, not a single arterial road had been widened in Bangalore, he said.

Bangalore had a unique feature of 33,000 four-road intersections, which ought to be manned whereas there were only 2,800 traffic policemen. Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) was widening 34 major junctions and creating exclusive bus bays wherever possible. He said that traffic discipline was eroding fast and it was difficult to driver with good road manners.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic - East) M.A. Saleem answered several questions regarding traffic problems. FKCCI president R.C. Purohit congratulated the city police for effective regulation thereby lowering the crime rate in 2006.