City police force to get 3,000 more cops

The additional strength is expected to decrease the stress levels in the police force

By Mateen Hafeez/TNN

Mumbai: The city police can heave a sigh of relief now. The Maharashtra government will be recruiting as many as 11,500 new policemen from across the state this year. While over 3,000 of them will be posted in Mumbai in the next few
months, the rest will be absorbed in the newly formed departments like the Cyber Crime Investigation Cells (CCIC).

According to director general of police P S Pasricha, the recruitment drive is being carried out as part of home minister R R Patil’s decision to induct 56,000 new policemen from all over the state in the next five years. “Every year 11,500 new policemen will be recruited by the state police,’’ Pasricha said.

Sources said long-duty hours and irregular weekly offs have been leading to a significant rise in cases of suicide in the “depressed’’ police force. Fresh recruitments will help the existing staff to take a day off, at least once in 15 days, they pointed out.

“We are going to start new CCICs in Thane, Nagpur and Pune. Though cyber crimes have been increasing in these three cities, we have only once cell to tackle such cases. The new CCICs will help the local police to crack down on cyber crimes effectively,’’ Pasricha said.
The state police is also planning to form economic offences wings (EOWs) in several cities. The city EOW, busy with economic crimes cases only, registers over 100 cases a year.

However, the conviction rate of the department is the lowest as compared to other branches. Also, over a thousand policemen will be posted in the State Reserve Police Force (SRPF).

The Times of India, May 31, 2005