No long, stressful duty to cops day before their weekly offs, directs Maharashtra DGP

Maharashtra DGP has instructed all unit commanders to make proper arrangements of duties in advance, ensuring cops’ weekly offs are not ruined

Director-general of Maharashtra Police Sanjay Pandey on Thursday ordered all police commissioners, superintendents of police (SP) and other unit commanders to not assign stressful and long duties to police personnel the day before their weekly offs.

Maharashtra DGP said cops are usually given long, stressful duty a day before their weekly off for maximum utilisation of the available manpower. But this leaves an adverse impact on their mental and physical health. (HT PHOTO)

The director-general of police (DGP) said in his order (of which HT has a copy) that the police personnel are usually given night patrolling duty or 24-hours duty before their weekly off for maximum utilisation of the available manpower. But this leaves an adverse impact on their mental and physical health.

A head constable from Thane Police said that this is a very common practice adopted by many district and city police to meet the manpower crisis. Its mainly seen in densely populated districts and cities, but not having sufficient police personnel.

Taking serious note of complaints received from policemen, the DGP Pandey has instructed all the unit commanders to make proper arrangements of duties in advance, ensuring police personnel’s weekly offs are not ruined.

“This is a very positive directive issued by the force chief and will prove beneficial for 179,949 police personnel from constabulary and over 10,000 junior officers across the state,” said an officer requesting anonymity.

The DGP’s decision is being welcomed by the junior strata of the police force, as the order has come at a time when the festival season has just started in the state. During the festive season due to regular bandobasts, nakabandi, preventive action drives and other duties, the workload is very high on the police force.

A senior police officer said that the DGP’s directive will yield results only if the commissioners, SPs and the police station or unit in-charges implement it effectively. A review mechanism should also be introduced to check if the police chief’s directives are being followed seriously at the ground level.

The DGP’s order does not apply to the Mumbai Police commissionerate as previous (Mumbai) commissioners had already looked into the issue and resolved it. “In Mumbai when a policeman is assigned a night duty then the next day he gets a full day off irrespective of his/her weekly offs,” a policeman from Mumbai Police’s north region said.