G Plus Volume 1 Issue 45

8
G PLUS AUG 09 - AUG 15, 2014
In The News
400 TECH ADVISORS
TO AID COPS
The
Home Department recently announced that several technical advisors would
be inducted into Assam Police to help the department to clear out pending cases
and to train new recruits.
RAHUL CHANDA
State Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi
recently approved the state
Home department’s proposal to
create 400 posts of Technical Advisors
on contractual basis in the state
police. According to police officials
the posts would be created to reduce
pendency of cases in all police stations
to 50 per cent within a year. But
will it really do so? Who will be these
advisors and how will they help reduce
the pendency?
Slow disposal rates of cases in the
city and state is a long pending issue
and with this new move of recruiting
technical advisors, it seems like the
authorities really want to work to reduce
crimes and punish the culprits,
but will this new strategy help or will
it turn out to be just a waste of public
money?
The advisors
According to senior police officials
the technical advisors will be
retired police officers. IGP (Law and
order) SN Singh said, “All the district
SPs are instructed to identify and
submit the details of retired police
officers who have a good history of
career and have solved tough cases.
The advisors have to be the best of the
officers who have completed all their
responsibilities with honesty and
sincerity.” So, the technical advisors
will be retired police officers, but the
question is no matter how sincere or
responsible they were, with police’s
history of graft, will they add up to
the reputation?
The contract
After receiving the details and
the names of the compiled retired police
officers, the present police officers
will decide on who will be hired and
who will not. But, group-ism is something
which cannot be left out from
a huge department like Assam Police.
According to highly placed sources in
the police, each and every officer has
a group of people working under him
and are his or her close lieutenants.
Apparently, these tentative advisors
who are retired are already aware
of the information that 400 technical
advisers would be hired across Assam
and they have already started pulling
the strings. Of course, everything
will depend on the names submitted
by the district SPs but who is to know
if the names will not have group-ism?
The officers deployed in all the
police stations are known to the SPs
and when biasness prevails in all
sectors, how can a government body
like the Assam Police be able to rid
of it. All the technical advisors will
be hired on a contractual basis for a
one year time period, and then may
be the service will be extended or a
new process of hiring will be carried
forwards. For this year the police is
planning to hire all the advisors till
the end of the financial year which is
March 2015.
The work
Again this is an analysis by the
police department that the young officers
deployed in various police stations
in the state do not understand
the place and find it difficult to solve
cases. They have less experience and
do not understand how to deal with
the cases efficiently for which they
require guidance. According to the
authorities, the retired police officers
who will join as technical advisors
will help these young officers solve
the cases in a speedy manner.
As claimed by the authorities, the
“
All the district SPs
are instructed to
identify and submit
the details of retired
police officers who
have a good history
of career and have
solved tough cases”
advisors would be inducted from the
financial sector to deal with banking/
non-banking frauds as well as from
judicial sector to tackle cybercrime
cases. The advisors also will have
great law and order maintenance record
as they will be expected to help
the young officers solve all cases relating
to law and order. Interestingly,
the advisors will be deployed in the
police stations located near their
homes as they will have to know the
area well. As cops are usually known
to have some understanding with the
criminals, will not the advisors be
helping the young officers to establish
new relations with the local criminals?
No matter the advisors will
provide better knowledge about the
area and local criminals which will
help maintaining the law and order
scenario, but they can also teach the
tricks of the trade to enter the graft
world.
The perk
The advisors would receive a
fixed salary of `20,000 per month and
`6.4 crore has been proposed for this
purpose in the budget. The process
of hiring is also on and according to
the police officials, the job history details
of all the eligible retired officers
have not yet been submitted by all
the district SPs, which is delaying the
process. The technical advisors will
be officers who have served as subinspectors
and inspectors in various
police stations.
The move sounds ambitious and
efficient but the officers, if selected
without any bias and if they guide the
young breed well, then there might
be a hope of change, which can be expected.
All in all, it is a positive move
and if everything works well, the society
should reap the benefits soon.
rahul.chanda@g-plus.in