As part of the ongoing efforts to find sustainable sources of income for the policeman welfare fund, the District Armed Reserve has taken up a dealership of HPCL to operate a fuel dispensing outlet on the DAR grounds at Kailasagiri.
“The land was a vacant pit that was being used as a dump by passersby, we realised it could be put to better use by setting up something there and we decided to take up a HPCL petro fuel outlet,” Director General of Police J.V. Ramudu told The Hindu .
The dealership commission and rentals from two ATM locations would go to the policeman welfare fund, he explained.
As a police run outlet customers are more likely to prefer this one, he said.
As Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has been repeatedly pointing out that the State government is facing a resource crunch and all departments have been asked to look at sustainable sources of income from their idle and unused assets. This piece of land of around 1,000 square yards was not unusable and it is sure to become a good source of income for the Policeman Welfare Fund.
“With the fund we help police families cope with crisis like medical emergencies, and also help pay part of the fees for higher studies in prestigious institutions for children of the policemen and homeguards.”
Nominal rent
“In the district, we only have some shops and a kalyana mandapam and now the petrol bunk, all of them are in the city and we are able to earn only from these. Our shops in the police stadium at Kailasagiri have been let out to former policemen or families of policemen who died in harness, it is the only source of livelihood for those families and it is difficult for us to hike the rentals for them,” District Superintendent of Police Koya Praveen explained.
“Our kalyana mandapams are let out to homeguards and constables and families of former police personnel at a nominal rent, outsiders pay market rate. Further, we use such posts for utilising services of personnel who are unable to take up active positions due to reasons of health,” he added.
Earlier, the DGP’s wife Padmaja inaugurated the Police Welfare Petrol Station and also dispensed fuel to the first customer.Additional DGP RP Thakur, IG North Coastal Zone Viswajeet, DIG Visakhapatnam range Ravichandra, City Police Commissioner Amit Garg and representatives of the HPCL, including Chief Regional Manager (Retail) V.V. Murali Krishna, were present.
