Smart policing is an essential ingredient of smart city and for the police to be smart the force should have the required infrastructure and manpower. However, the city police fall short on both the counts.
The city police are not only grossly under staffed, but a number of proposals sent by the Commissionerate are gathering dust with the the State government.
Regarding manpower, the police Commissionerate has sent proposals to strengthen its women force, increase the strength of City Security Wing (CSW), City Task Force (CTF), Special Branch, Counter Intelligence and traffic wing.
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The Commisionerate has a total strength of about 3,300 and of them women constitute about 2.3 % when the requirement is about 33 %.
The CSW that takes care of all VVIP and VIP security is in urgent requirement of at least 100 trained commandos to provide adequate to security to all.
It is learnt the Commissionerate had to scale down the security of its officers to provide security to the local politicians.
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Being a city with a number of strategic installations, the Special Branch and the counter intelligence team need to be strengthened, said a senior officer. “We are running the show with just skeleton strength,” he said.
The Commissionerate has also sent a proposal to start another CTF police station apart from the existing one and it is gathering dust at the Home Department. “We need at least two CTF police stations for the two zones and the strength also needs to be increased, as CTF takes care of a whole gamut of operation and enforcement duty right from ganja and drug smuggling to immoral trafficking and from arresting inter-State gang to curbing gaming menace,” said Commissioner of Police T. Yoganand.
Visakhapatnam is bigger than Hyderabad and Cyberabad combined and yet the force is much less.
The existing strength in Hyderabad and Cyberabad Police Commissionerates are 14,716 and 7,131 respectively and in comparison to just 3300 in Visakhapatnam.
A proposal has been sent for recruitment of at least 1,400 additional personnel and even if the government sanctions about 1,000, the commissionerate will be better placed.
Tourism police station
The long pending proposal of tourism police station, which was principally cleared by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu last year during the District Collectors’ conference, is yet to become a reality. Though the government has passed a GO to establish a Cyber Police station, the project is yet to be grounded. It is learnt that the district administration has sanctioned 1000 sq yds land near Marripalem Ryhtu Bazar, but the police are short of funds to ground the project.
“Setting up of a Cyber Police station will not alone suffice. We need a cyber forensic lab with trained manpower, similar to that of Cyberabad. Visakhapatnam is in the top bracket when it comes to cyber crime and to counter the crime we need a police station, a forensic lab and trained manpower,” said a senior officer.
Telangana has recently invested about ₹30 crore on their existing facility to make it a state-of-the-art cyber forensic lab in the country. “We need to take a leaf from them,” he said.
In the city, there are about seven police stations that share space in four buildings. There is no separate building for MVP Police Station which shares space with Three Town Police station. Similarly, Airport police station shares space with Kancharapalem, Dwaraka with Fourth Town and MR Peta police stations with Two Town.
This is creating a lot of problem, as not only the police personnel have to share space, but also criminals who are arrested. The biggest problem is storing the recovered stolen property, which is piling up with each passing day.