A big challenge awaits the city police should Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s proposal to make Visakhapatnam the Executive capital materialise.
All major offices, including the Chief Minister’s camp office, the Secretariat and the DGP office, will be moved to the city, which means an increase in VVIP movement.
Providing security to MLAs, Ministers and other major officials and the leaders will become a major task and this, according to some senior police officers, will have an impact on regular policing.
Whenever there is VVIP movement, the entire machinery is used for bandobust duty, which includes route mapping, sanitising the route and using road-opening parties, apart from providing security to high-value targets and securing the venues.
Since the DGP’s office will be moved, it goes without saying that the police headquarters will be located here and it will bring in more force, both in terms to manpower and infrastructure. But the question is will it be sufficient and will the depleted local force be able to handle day-to-day policing.
The city has a population of close to 25 lakh, and it is bound to increase by a few lakhs if the proposal materialises.
The present police force stands at a little over 4,000, including personnel drawn from the Armed Reserve battalion and home guards. The police-to-population ratio is around one policeman for every 750 citizens, which is quite low when compared to the national prescribed strength of one policeman for every 560 citizens. As such, there is a shortage of about 1,500 men and officers.
"If the police headquarters is moved here, we will have some manpower, especially the ISW and CSW for VVIP security cover. More dog squads and Bomb Disposal Squads will also be moved in. Whether it will be sufficient remains to be seen," said an ACP rank officer. Moving manpower is not the only solution, as the workload will also increase manifold.
Surveillance
Surveillance plays a major role as every nook and corner needs to be checked. Teams have to be deployed to check every lodge, hotel resorts and rented houses.
The city already has some electronic surveillance in place, such as the hotel and lodge monitoring system and CCTV cover.
Under the system, online registration at all hotels and lodges are linked to the real-time monitoring at the City Police Command and Control Centre.
"Every time a person checks into a hotel, he has to furnish details such as Aadhaar or PAN. Photographs and details are checked instantly through the facial recognition system in CCTNS (Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System). And we are now on a drive to link every lodge and hotel, small or big," said DCP Ranga Reddy.
There are an estimated 15,000 CCTV cameras in the city and efforts are on to increase the number to 25,000. "Our goal is to link every camera to the CCC, be it the ones installed by GVMC, police or any other government agency or for that matter the ones installed by banks, private offices and citizens," said DCP (Zone-II) Uday Bhaskar
Maoist threat
Though the Maoist threat has now been limited to interior parts of Visakha Agency, a minor blast in some corner of the city can trigger a security emergency, said a senior police officer.
Last year, the police arrested Aathmakuru Anusha (24) and her two sisters Annapoorna (33) and Bhavani (38), who are alleged to be members of Chaitanya Mahila Sangam and Amara Veerula Bandhu Mitrula Committee, front organisations of the CPI(Maoist).
According to the police, they were trying to establish a Maoist sleeper cell right in the heart of the city.
Handling traffic, which is bound to increase due to VVIP movement, is going to be another major issue.
There are issues concerning faulty road engineering, faulty signals, lack of over and underbridges at critical junctions and lack of flyovers, said an ACP-rank officer in the Traffic Department.
The manpower in the traffic department is around 500 and there is a need for about 300 more. If the Executive capital becomes a reality, then it is going to be chaos, if certain things are not addressed immediately, he said.
