Restructuring of Odisha Special Branch on the cards

BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to achieve functional efficiency and addresses the existing inadequacies and deficiencies, Odisha government is mulling restructuring of the Special Branch of Intelligence Directorate. As proposed, the twin structure of range and district will be done away with and the Intelligence Directorate will be created as a unitary structure. The headquarters of Director, Intelligence will be at Bhubaneswar.

The Special Branch will be headed by a police officer either of the rank of DIG or 1G unlike an SP rank officer now heading the unit. The State Security Wing will be headed by a DIG or IG rank police officer working in the Directorate. 

Though no new post is required to be created for the Special Branch, one new post of DIG or IG has been proposed for the State Security Wing. The DIG or IG of State Security Wing will head both the Security Wing and the Chief Minister’s Security Wing, now looked after by an SP-ranked officer. 

A senior officer of the Intelligence Directorate said there will be a single administrative cell for both the Special Branch and Security Wing and one SP rank officer will be in charge of the administration cell. “Both the administrative cells and reserve offices will be merged with the SP, Administration Office. The headquarters of DIG/IG Intelligence and the State Security Wing will be at the Capital city,” he said.

The Special Branch is one of the oldest wings of Odisha Police tasked with primary responsibility of collection, analysis and exploitation of information besides to look into the security of vital installations. 
Created in 2004, one of the major objectives of the wing has been collection and dissemination of intelligence on internal security, terrorism, communalism along with the focus on socio-political intelligence.

The Special Intelligence Wing (SIW), dealing with Naxal intelligence, and Special Operational Group (SOG) created in the same year as agencies dedicated to fight against left wing extremism are also functioning under the overall architecture of the Directorate.

While the SIW has robust and efficient organisational structure and task-oriented functioning, the same is lacking in Special Branch. Keeping in view the growing challenges for internal security, several states including Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat have upgraded their structure by placing senior officers at cutting-edge level.

“There is need to bring in efficacy in leadership and post senior ranking officers in direct charge of the Special Branch and Security Wing who will be directly monitoring the day- to-day functioning and decision making in the vital and important units,” the officer added.