K'taka: Slew of allowances to police; orderly system scrapped

Karnataka government today announced a slew of allowances to police personnel covering 90 per cent of the force and scrapping of the orderly system, but said their long-standing wage anomaly issue can be addressed only next year.
"At this point of time, it is difficult to decide on wage anomaly, because next year we are constituting a state wage revision commission, which has to discuss about the revision and send a recommendation to the government," Chief Minister Siddaramaiah told reporters here.
The government had constituted a committee headed by Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Raghavendra Auradkar to look into wage anomaly faced by Karnataka police in comparison to other government employees and police from other states. The committee submitted its report in September according to which the anomaly exists.

In June, the constabulary had threatened to go on leave protesting alleged "harassment" by senior officials, lesser pay and no proper leave, but government had thwarted it by warning strict action and by bringing police and related services under Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA).
The state government has, meanwhile, decided to give some new allowances to police personnel, effective from December 1, which increases their salary by Rs 2,000 per month.
Siddaramaiah said Uniform allowance had been increased from Rs 100 per month to Rs 500 per month. Earlier there was no conveyance allowance and now government had decided to give Rs 600 per month for it.

"Likewise there was no hardship allowance, now we will give Rs 1,000 per month towards this," he added.

He said this would be applicable to those from constable to Sub Inspector rank and cover about 90 per cent of the police force, approximately 80,000 people.
The Chief Minister also said government has decided to make changes to promotion rules to facilitate promotions of constables after 10 years of service, instead of 20 odd years earlier.
"If someone joins as a constable, they don't get promotion till about 20-23 years. At the most, he/she may retire as head constable or ASI. So we have decided to make changes to the rules to see to (it) that they get promotion in 10 years," he said.

Claiming that this measure would motivate the constabulary, Siddaramaiah said "now at least they may wish to wear two stars at the time of their retirement".
He also announced that the government had decided to end the orderly system in police and find an alternative to it.
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Siddaramaih also announced that permission has been granted to appoint 7,815 police personnel this year, including 711 Sub-Inspectors.
"(In) the recruitment procedure of 6,610 police constables; 215 PSIs (Police Sub-Inspectors) has been completed so far. About 5,000constables are under training," he said.
The Chief Minister added that steps have been taken to fillup posts that will fall vacant in the next two years.