The Karnataka government is learnt to be giving serious thought on splitting the Bengaluru City Police (BCP) Commissionerate into two or three city police commissionerates.
This comes less than a year after the erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) was divided into five city corporations.
Home Minister Priyank Kharge confirmed the development and said, “There was an earlier proposal to split the commissionerate, which was not acted upon.
It again came up for discussion during the formation of GBA last year.
We are studying the pros and cons of the issue and after a holistic assessment, we will put up a proposal before the Chief Minister.
No decision has been taken yet.” Official team will study feasibility of additional commissinerate for Bengaluru: Home Minister ‘BCP unwieldy’ The BCP Commissionerate currently has a total of 186 police stations, including 115 law and order and 53 traffic police stations.
As the city expands horizontally, keeping in tune with the 2007 experiment of expanding the civic limits from 225 sq. km to 709 sq. km and forming the BBMP, urbanised areas have continuously been added to the BCP Commissionerate.
Over the last two years, at least six stations have been added.
To accommodate this, the number of law and order divisions in the city shot up from eight to eleven and traffic divisions from two to four.
On top of this, there are at least 15 more law and order police stations in the adjoining Bengaluru Rural and Bengaluru South district police units which are largely urbanised, but continue to be governed under rural police units.
Their addition eventually could make it unwieldy, a section argues.
“The Bengaluru Police Commissioner has a population of over 1.5 crore and an area much larger than the Greater Bengaluru Authority to oversee.
He has nearly 30 IPS officers reporting to him.
This is extremely unwieldy and no Commissioner is able to provide adequate focus to all areas.
Oversight is key to effective policing,” a senior police official said.
Another senior official said that ideally, the core city should be retained as the Bengaluru City Police, and the suburbs — including urbanised police stations in Bengaluru Rural and Bengaluru South district units — should be included and reorganised into two more city commissionerates.
Bengaluru City Police Law and Order police stations: 115 organised into 11 divisions Traffic police stations: 53 organised into 4 divisions Cybercrime police stations: 9 Women police stations: 8 Central Crime Branch Police Station: 1 Total: 186 Recently added police stations Madanayakanahalli, Kumbalgodu, Hebbagodi, Avalahalli, Talaghattapura, Rajanakunte Police stations around Bengaluru with urban characteristics but still under district police units Nelamangala, Doddaballapur, Devanahalli, Vijayapura, Vishwanathapura, Hoskote, Sarjapura, Surya City, Attibele, Bidadi, Bannerghatta, Jigani, Anekal, Tavarekere, Kaggalipura ‘Unified command key’ However, many senior police officers have argued that a unified command is key in policing, which works only with a clear chain of command.
“Even if we take the model of five corporations in the city, there is a pan-city body called the GBA which has a chief commissioner and several special commissioners to integrate the functions of the five corporations.
The BCP also needs such a unified command,” a senior police official opposed to the idea of splitting the BCP Commissionerate said.
“We can have five Joint Commissioners for five corporations in the city, each of whom will get two to three divisions, above which there should be an Additional Commissioner (Law and Order).
Traffic and Crime Divisions should also be headed by Additional Commissioners, above whom there will be the Commissioner.
This will increase oversight on the ground and preserve the unified command,” he argued.
THtalksBengaluru: ‘Splitting police administration pose challenges’ Bengaluru: Only city, one commissionerate All other major city regions in India — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai — have multiple commissionerates.
While the core city remains the key commissionerate, suburban areas around it have been organised into multiple city police commissionerates.
Bengaluru remains the only major city where a large commissionerate, including suburban areas, is surrounded by rural district police units.
Police Commissionerates in major metro cities of India Delhi: National Capital Territory governed by Delhi police, but the larger National Capital Region includes Commissionerates for Gurugram, Faridabad and Noida Mumbai: Commissionerates for Greater Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane Kolkata: Kolkata City Police for core city, surrounded by commissionerates for Howrah, Barrackpore, Chandan Nagar and Bidhan Nagar Hyderabad: Commissionerates from Hyderabad, Cyberabad, Rachakonda and Future City, apart from district police units for Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri Chennai: Chennai City Police and Chennai Suburban Police.
Suburban Police Commissionerate abolished and reorganised into Greater Chennai City Police, Avadi City Police and Tambaram City Police Traffic and CCB If the BCP Commissionerate is split into multiple units, will Bengaluru Traffic Police and Central Crime Branch (CCB) be also split, is the moot question.
While many argue that traffic and crime units need to have a pan city footprint, a section of officers argue the commissionerates must have all three units - law and order, crime and traffic.
If not, a senior police officer said, the commissioners will then be left with only law and order function, and that will not work effectively.
