Chennai
India’s burgeoning population and spiralling crime, including cyber-crimes, have made an overhaul of the system of policing critical, and any further delay will make this challenge even bigger, said the latest ‘Status of Policing in India Report (SPIR), 2019’ prepared by the Common Cause and Lokniti programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). The report throws up some startling facts about the country’s policing and the police force.
“Police reforms should be taken seriously by this government,” advised D Mukherjee, former DGP of Tamil Nadu. He disagrees with the suggestion of some experts to bring State policing under the central government saying, “It will destroy the federal structure of the country and the State government will stop taking accountability for solving the local law and order problemsof the State.” Mahendra Reddy, DGP, Telangana, said, “World over the police force is localised, under local and regionaladministration.”
SPIR 2019 is also the first of its kind in India and South Asia, where close to 12,000 police personnel were surveyed inside police stations or at their residences across India (21 States), including an additional sample of 10,595 of their family members, in order to get a holistic picture. This study also uses official data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) to construct the big picture of policing and its resources in the States and to show the need gaps in various vital areas.
Where Tamil Nadu stands
Tamil Nadu is ranked 10th in the overall Police Adequacy Index, that took into account workforce strength, state of the infrastructure and budget allocated. The top three rankers were Delhi, Kerala and Maharashtra, and the bottom three ranks were held by Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh. “I do not agree. TN Police is one of the best in terms of traditions and best practices. We follow policing strictly by the police-rule-book, while other States don’t even remember that it exists” said Mukherjee.
Although the police work force strength is significantly lower than sanctioned, as per the last published government data (2016), Maharashtra has the highest total actual strength (2,25,475) followed by Uttar Pradesh (1,98,919) with Tamil Nadu in third position (1,28,197). Tamil Nadu had the highest representation of women at 12.9 per cent of workforce, compared to 7.3 per cent at the National level in 2016. Mukherjee is expecting the percentage of women in the workforce to move up drastically with the government relaxing the norms for women to meet the requirements of the physical tests. In the past, women were not able to clear the physical tests of the recruitment process. “Our police force has the highest percentage of women in the country,” said J K Tripathy, DGP, Tamil Nadu. “It is the common people on the street that should say how good is the police in Tamil Nadu, not police officers. Tamil Nadu police is one of the best in India. Modernisation of the State police is an ongoing process in the State.”
While the police in India worked at 77.4 per cent of its sanctioned capacity, Tamil Nadu worked with an overall strength of 84.4 per cent of the sanctioned strength, with a constabulary strength of 85.4 per cent against sanctioned, and was ranked six. Officer strength (ASI to DGP level) stood at 76.5 per cent against sanctioned, thus making it approximately 9.3 constables per officer (Padmanabhaiah Committee on Restructuring of Police recommended in the year 2000 that the teeth-to-tail, or the officer-to-constabulary ratio should be 1:4). “Looking back, constable recruitment was decentralised with the monthly recruitment by the SPs, starting at the district level till 1979, when CM MGR brought in a centralised recruitment system for the State police. But an IG in the DG’s office was trying to bring in people of his community. Then on complaints, MGR halted the process and no recruitment happened for four years, till the system was modified. In 1991, CM J Jayalalithaa formed the Tamil Nadu Uniformed Service Recruitment Board (TNUSRB) for this purpose that continues till today. The backlog of those days has cascaded over the years since then, “added former DGP Mukherjee.
Delhi and Kerala topped the list, with the actual strength at 98.3 per cent and 97.9 per cent of their respective sanctioned strength. The largest State in India, Uttar Pradesh turns out to be the worst, with its police force functioning at 48 per cent of its capacity, less than half its total sanctioned strength.
“There is a definite need for police reforms. There is no single aspect but many factors that need to be taken into account for this. It is the police leadership within the police force that has to bring about this reform.” said Reddy
Resource crunch
In the modern digital India, surprisingly, there are police stations without any access to wireless devices, computers, vehicles or even telephones.
As per the report, in a survey across 22 Indian States, 70 police stations do not have access to any wireless devices, 214 police stations do not have access to a single telephone, and 24 police stations have access to neither wireless nor telephones. Tamil Nadu reported nosuch case.
A challenge that must be addressed is that of basic resources such as drinking water and clean toilets, as one in 10 police stations or units do not have proper drinking water facilities and one in five has no access to clean toilets, even today.
The average expenditure on police training in India is dismally low, amounting to just a little over one per cent of the total police expenditure-budget. Tamil Nadu, ranked 5 in the list, was placed better with expenditure on training amounting to 1.93 per cent, nearly double the national average, but falling behind Delhi at 2.49 per cent, Telangana 2.42 per cent, Chhattisgarh 2.09 per cent, and Madhya Pradesh 1.96 per cent, takingthe 2012–2016 average.
Over 37 per cent of police personnel are willing to quit for another profession, ifgiven a chance.
Gautam Sawang, DGP, Andhra Pradesh, said, " There is an absolute need of the hour for police reforms, going by the pace of transformation and the expectations on the ground, that is putting a lot of pressure on the police, be it training, proper orientation, and also in terms of delivery expectationsfrom police.”
Work culture and stress factors
On the human resources front, 36 per cent of the family members surveyed, feel that senior police personnel behave badly with the subordinate staff, adding that the existing police system is more unfair towards those at thelower ranks.
Use of harsh and bad language by senior officers was quite common, and two out of five in the police force, reportedly experienced it. Over 25 per cent of the respondents in the SPIR survey said junior staff was being used to run personal/household chores.
Duty hours
The average working hours are currently in excess of 14 hours a day, in many States, without even a single day off in a week, leading to stress, fatigue and anger-issues in official as well as domestic life. The Nagaland police is an exception with average working hours of between 11 and 18 hours, where eight out of 10 police personnel are not getting paid for overtime work. Nearly 75 per cent of them agreed that, “Workload is affecting physical and mental health conditions”. About 43 per cent of the police ‘completely agreed’ with this statement, while 30 per cent ‘somewhat agreed’. More than 60 per cent of the respondents among the family members agreed that–as compared to others, police officers are more prone to getting angry and irritable and they suffer from mental health issues.
About a third of the family respondents also agreed with the statement that compared to others, more police officers are badly behaved with family, and are more prone to alcoholism. Seventy-five per cent of police personnel agree that the workload is making it difficult for them to do their job well, with 80 per cent families reporting partial or complete agreement with the statement that policing is a very stressful job, 37 per cent reported too much work as the main reasonfor stress.
“Working hours in Tamil Nadu generally are normal, leave applications are seldom refused. Going beyond the prescribed eight-hour duty is only seasonal and only on some days it can stretch depending on some emerging situation. During CM Jayalalithaa’s reign a lot of extra perks were rolled out for them,” said Mukherjee.
Although policing is a State subject, most of the State Police Acts are influenced either by the central archaic Police Act of 1861 or the Model PoliceAct of 2006.
Adding to this problem is the lack of adequate recreation or rejuvenation - more than 50 per cent of the family members responded that they hadn’t gone on a holiday, and over 40 per cent reported, not having visited relatives out of town, and more than two third of the respondents among family members said they have not gone for a religious pilgrimage in the past two to three years.
On the housing front, 58 per cent of the respondents among the family members reported being satisfied with the government provided housing quarters. Many complained of the small size of the house (23 per cent), poor maintenance (19 per cent) and inadequate facilities (14 per cent).
While everyone agrees that reform is critical, it is not clear where it should begin. “Commitment to reform depends 90 per cent on the police leadership within and the rest 10 per cent on external factors,” said Reddy.
Comprehensive overhaul of the system critical to efficient policing
Tamil Nadu Police Files
Visit news.dtnext.in to explore our interactive epaper!
Download the DT Next app for more exciting features!
Click here for iOS
Click here for Android