Policing in city hit as four of six DCP posts vacant

The overall shortage of senior-rank police officers has affected work at the Gurgaon police commissionerate.

The overall shortage of senior-rank police officers has affected work at the Gurgaon police commissionerate.

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This is evident as four of the six posts of deputy commissioner of police (DCPs) have been lying vacant for months. With this, Indian Police Service (IPS) officers have to handle multiple portfolios.

At present, the city has only two DCPs — Maheshwar Dayal from the Tamil Nadu cadre (a non-Haryana IPS officer) and Surinder Pal from the Haryana Police Service (HPS).

Dayal, who had assumed charge as DCP (east) in Gurgaon in August 2010, now handles the work of DCP (crime) as well as DCP (traffic).

DCP (west) Surinder Singh also functions as DCP (south).

The Gurgaon district is divided into three police zones — east, west and south.

Each is to be headed by an IPS officer designated as DCP. There are three additional posts of DCP (headquarters), DCP (traffic) and DCP (crime).

The chances of filling the vacant slots for DCPs in Gurgaon majorly rely on the ‘internal arrangements’ such as promoting the existing HPS officers to the cadre of IPS or appointing same-rank officials from other states.

At present, four IPS officers of non-Haryana cadres, including Maheshwar Dayal, have assumed various roles in many districts of the state.

The total shortage of IPS-level officers in the country is 1,327. As against the sanctioned strength of 4,720, only 3,400 posts have been filled.

Gurgaon police commissioner KK Sindhu claimed that some of the vacant posts of DCPs would be filled soon.

“We hope that some HPS officer promoted to the rank of IPS will join as DCPs in Gurgaon after formalities such as notification for their promotions are completed.

The scarcity of IPS officers is an all-India problem which has affected functioning in almost all the states, including Haryana,” Sindhu added.