(SATURDAY) Kerala Police short of 20,000 officers, needs funds (IANS Interview)

Kerala faces a shortage of some 20,000 police personnel and none of its 482 police stations have the requisite infrastructure, a top officer has said.

In an exclusive interview with IANS, Director General of Police T.P. Senkumar said the police department is staring at a huge financial crunch.

According to budgetary allocations, Rs.3,001 crore were set aise for non-plan expenditure, a major chunk of which is spent on salaries, whereas only Rs.55 crore has been assigned for plan expenditure -- for taking up new projects or improving existing conditions.

"Good policing comes at a cost and the prime requisite is proper infrastructure and working capital," Senkumar said.

"Not a single of the 482 police stations in the state have the required infrastructure. We get an advance of Rs.1,000 to meet expenses, whereas in Telangana state, each station gets Rs.75,000," he said.

He said Rs.20 crore was assigned by the central government to improve the state of passport cells in police stations, but the amount has been diverted to other departments.

Senkumar said the total number of police officials in the force today was around 54,000 and with growing needs of policing, he estimated that there was a shortage of around 20,000 personnel.

There was no recruitment of sub-inspectors from 1996 to 2003 and between 2007 and 2013.

"The recruitment process has to be systematic and continuous. Then only we can catch the best minds to join the forces," he said.

Yet, Senkumar, who was recently appointed to the top post, along with his deputy S. Ananthakrishnan are confident of improving things in six to seven years time.

"We wish the centre can provide us financial assistance to the tune of Rs.4 crore for each station and if they can provide it for 10 percent of the stations every year, we are confident that Kerala Police will become the best force in the world in around seven years," said Senkumar.

He also that they were planning a slew of training programmes, some of which some have already begun.

One of the programmes on the anvil is psychological training.

"Self-esteem is a must for all in the force and that's what we want to achieve through our training programmes. The day it happens, Kerala Police will have nothing to look back," added Senkumar.

(Sanu George can be contacted at sanu.g@ians.in)