04/09/2019 - Governance | Mainstorming

IAS Parliament 5 years

KEY POINTS

· The latest report on the Status of Policing in India, produced jointly by Common Cause and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

· To start with, there are simply not enough people to do the job a surprising fact, given widespread unemployment. Vacancies abound at all ranks, but those in senior ranks are higher than those in the constabulary.

· India may be a global IT champion but police stations, on average, have just six computers and states like Bihar and Assam less than one.

· Computers may yet be considered relatively sophisticated tools; some 240 stations did not even have vehicles. The police work, on average, 14 hours a day and one in five women in the police said she lacked a separate toilet.

· The inadequacy of physical infrastructure is matched by an abject failure on the part of the state to widen the social ambit of the police force or, indeed, treat the institution in the kind of arm’s-length relationship that fosters effective policing.

· The study also found that the Indian police system bias against women working in the police, with about one in four male personnel demonstrating high bias against their female colleagues.

· The frequent transfers of senior police persons who do not conform to a political leader’s demands have entered the realm of popular culture.

· Poor infrastructure and inadequate training and social sensitisation have all served to accentuate the foundational defects of India’s police force.

Measures for better policing

· Boosting infrastructure and capacity of the police forces includes increase in the number of police personnel in the country, improvement in recruitment, training and service conditions so there is an urgent requirement to recruit more people.

· Experts suggest that after 18 years of service, some CAPFs could switch to the Armed Police of the state. This is one way of filling vacancies. Another reform is using technology to supplement manpower.

· Urban areas in India have been witnessing rapid growth. As a result challenges for the police in cities have also become immense.

· In this situation, as recommended by the National Police Commission in the 6th report, a system of Police Commissionerate should be introduced in cities with population of five lakhs and above and places where special conditions like speedy urbanisation, industrialisation, etc. demand it.

· For efficient policing, there is a need for the police force to restrict themselves to core functions.

· 5th Report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission further suggests that functions like serving court’s summons, antecedents and addresses verification for passport applications or job verifications etc. can be outsourced to private agents or government departments. These measures will help in reducing the workload of the police.