ON DEC 21-22: Two day AI police commissioners’ conference

Amritsar, December 20, 2012: The Punjab Police is organising the 1st Conference of the Commissioners of Police of the country on 21st and 22nd of December, 2012, in coordination with the Bureau of Police Research and Development.

About 55 delegates are attending the Conference. There are a total of 47 Commissionerates in the country. Commissioners of Police from 21 Commissionerates and representatives from 7 Commissionerates are attending the Conference. In addition, Director General of Police, Andhra Pradesh, V. Dinesh Reddy and Principal Secretary (Home), Assam, Sh. Sailesh are also attending.

Eminent delegates attending the Conference, include Neeraj Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Delhi, Dr. Satya Pal Singh, Commissioner of Police, Mumbai, Anurag Sharma, Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad and Dr. K. N. Sharma, Director General of Police, BPR&D.

Representatives from 9 States which do not have the Commissionerate system are also attending the Conference to understand the system and make appropriate proposals to their respective States. These States include J & K, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Apart from discussions and deliberations, the following presentations are scheduled for the Conference: i) Ideal structure of Commissionerates – DGP, Andhra Pradesh, ii)  Crowd Control – Latest technology and concepts – CP, Mumbai, iii) Court monitoring system – CP, Vijaywada, and iv)      Traffic management – CP, Bangalore.

Discussions and deliberations will be held on various issues including: Structure of Commissionerates, Regulatory and monitoring functions, City patrolling system, Foreigners registration and monitoring system,  Magisterial duties and Prevention of crime.

After analysing the existing structures, the delegates will propose an ideal structure for Commissionerates in the country.

Sukhbir Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister –cum- Home Minister Punjab shall be the Chief Guest and will deliver the keynote address on December 21 at 3:15 p.m.

It may be mentioned here that the Government of India had constituted a committee headed by Padmanabhiah, former Union Home Secretary on police reforms. The committee in its report submitted in August 2000 recommended that in all state capitals and in all cities having a population of more than 10 lakhs, the system of Police Commissionerate be adopted. At present, Police Commissionerates are functional in 12 states of Delhi, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab only.

It has been a long journey in establishing Police Commissionerates in major cities of the country for the requirements of handling law and order and internal security issues effectively, despite the fact that the system got operational in Calcutta (Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai) more than seventy years before Independence. It was introduced in Hyderabad in 1939. Thereafter, Commissionerate status was given to Ahmedabad and Bangalore in 1960. In 1965, the cities of Pune and Nagpur were also converted into Commissionerates. While moving the motion for making Ahmedabad City into a Police Commissionerate, it was emphasised that large modern city had to face complex issues requiring police arrangements supervised by senior officers and promptness of approach, for which success of Bombay Police was a shining example.

In Punjab, 3 Commissionerates of Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar were set up in 2010.