More police for a bigger City

More police for a bigger City
By R Venkatesh,DH News Service,Bangalore:
The police department is all set to revamp its force to keep pace with the growing Bangalore City.

The department will soon set up two new divisions — the North-East and South-West divisions — taking the total number of City divisions to nine. A separate police station for the new Devanahalli International Airport is also in the offing.

The two new divisions would need two more deputy commissioners of police officiating. Around 2,000 new recruits will also be inducted by March-end to meet the increased manpower requirement. Currently, there are seven divisions — East, West, North, South, Central, South-East and one in charge of security for Vidhana Soudha. Besides these, the City traffic police department is bifurcated into East and West divisions.

According to a proposal sent to the government, the North-East division will have three sub-divisions with around 12 police stations in its jurisdiction, while the South-West will have three sub-divisions and 11 police stations.
Both divisions will have three new police stations each — Arkavathy, Sahakarnagar and Thanisandra for the North-East division and Uttarahalli, Ullal and Byadarahalli for the South-West. According to sources, all files in this regard have peen put on fast track. While the North-East division will be operational in two months, the South-West division might take more time.

In all probability, nine DCPs will man the City police by early May, against the seven DCPs in position now. Another proposal to set up two new traffic police divisions, Central and South, has been placed before the government but it may take a while before it materialises.

Currently, one DCP heads each of the two existing traffic police divisions. Another DCP post will soon be created exclusively for administrative work of the City traffic police.