Rajkumar Vhatkar: Planning to fill police dept’s vacant sanctioned posts of last two years in the next six months

The Mumbai Police Commissioner recently pointed out that the force is short on more than 8,700police personnel as recruitment drives took place only once in the last fouryears. What is the department doing to fill the vacant positions?

The department is short-staffed because of the lockdown enforced by Covid-19 due to which we could not conduct recruitment drives after 2019. And with almost 1,500 policemen retiring every year and another 100-200 personnel seeking voluntary retirement, getting dismissed or opting for inter-district transfer, the number of vacancies has grown. Recently, we recruited 1,076 men for vacancies which were to be filled in 2019. However, we are planning that the sanctioned posts for the years 2020 and 2021 be filled together in the next six months.

Do you think eight-hour duty for the constabulary rank is possible to implement in a city like Mumbai?

Enforcement of eight hours of duty was successfully done but it was hampered by Covid-19. Due to the pandemic, the entire nature of working has changed. In the initial few months, we were enforcing lockdown and most of our men were living with comorbidities. So, almost 10-20 per cent of the police force was away from duty and hence the eight-hour duty exercise had taken a backseat.

Out of the 126 policemen martyred in the pandemic, families of how many cops have received compensation and how many got jobs on compassionate grounds?

In terms of recruitment on compassionate grounds, we have provided jobs to the kin of 46 policemen. Around 12-15 applications are pending and after due verification, those family members will also be recruited. As far as the remaining martyred policemen are concerned, their family members were either under age or they did not have anyone who requires a job at present. Compensations have been provided to the kin of 108 policemen so far. Five or six applications are pending with the government while remaining were not eligible.

Could you explain the rules of reinstatement? Did the department make any changes in the rules since the reinstatement of controversial cop Sachin Waze?

No changes have been made. It is a well set-out practice. It is implemented across Maharashtra and it is as per government’s guidelines. Every three months, we conduct a suspension review meeting which is headed by the Commissioner of Mumbai police. Joint Commissioner of police (admin), Deputy commissioner of police (headquarter), Additional Commissioner of police (AP) and Additional Commissioner of police (Anti Corruption Bureau) are also part of the committee and all the cases of suspensions are put up before them. The committee reads the allegation made out against the officers and based on their delinquency, default and the nature of offence, a decision to reinstate a suspended cop is taken. So, the then committee had decided to reinstate him (Waze).

Recently, 11 people were arrested for trying to dupe Mumbai police. What further changes will be made to ensure that such a thing does not happen in the future recruitment drives?

In all the recruitments that happen in India, the candidates try to subvert the system and it is up to the system to remove such elements. Accordingly, we had devised our own system…We had 10 centers outside Mumbai. So, when the candidates appeared, we had videographed them. Out of 2.5 lakh candidates who appeared for the written exams, only 14,000 were selected for physical test and documentation. Every day, 1,200 persons appeared for the exercise which went on for 10 days. During the physical test also, we videographed the candidate and after finalising them, we called them and matched them with the videos. This way, a person using bogus methods to get recruited will be caught.