City Police Commissioner A.B. Venkateswara Rao on Saturday lauded home guards for their active role in day-to-day policing.
Participating in the 52 Home Guards Raising Day celebrations at City Armed Reserve (CAR) Police Parade Grounds here, he said, apart from regular duties like maintaining law and order, regulating traffic and ensuring security for VIPs, home guards actively helped police during natural calamities.
He added that home guards also extended their services to the Crime Investigation Department (CID), A.P. Transco, All India Radio (AIR), temples and industries.
“The home guard system was introduced in 1962, and in the very next year, personnel were recruited from Vijayawada. The honorarium for home guards, which was Rs. 7 a day, was increased to Rs. 300 a day later. Still, there is a need to increase the honorarium,” Mr. Rao said.
Maintaining that the government is mulling several welfare schemes for home guards, the city police chief said facilities such as insurance, loans and reservation in police recruitment were being extended to them.
Earlier, the Commissioner inspected a guard of honour and distributed prizes to winners in various sports events.
Deputy Commissioners of Police Tafseer Iqbal and G.V.G. Ashok Kumar, Home Guards Commandant P. Prakasa Rao, Senior Company Commander V. Seshacharyulu and West Zone Assistant Commissioner of Police S. Raghava Rao participated in the programme.
