Uttar Pradesh: Now, rural police stations to be part of 3 commissionerates

LUCKNOW: The state cabinet on Thursday cleared the proposal to reorganise the three police commissionerates in UP on Thursday. Under the new provision, Lucknow police commissionerate will now include six police stations of Lucknow rural. Similarly, Kanpur commissionerate will include 14 police stations and Varanasi 13 more police stations of the bordering rural areas.
The cabinet also approved vesting financial power for the police department in the three police commissionerates to their respective police commissioners. The police commissioner will be the head of department and main authority for executing government orders after consultation with finance and personnel department in the commissionerate.

A senior home department officer said the reorganisation has been done to bring parity in the working between the district administration and the police. Until now, the bordering rural areas of Lucknow, Kanpur and Varanasi were away from the jurisdiction of key administrative offices and this hampered administrative and supervisory system and coordination.
Until now, the three rural area police districts of Lucknow, Kanpur and Varanasi were under the jurisdiction of inspector general of police ranges and additional director general of police zone. “These senior police officers (IG and ADG) had expressed the view that the supervision of rural areas was difficult due to overlapping of jurisdiction between the commissionerates and rural areas,” the officer said.
Further, the system of criminal justice system, prison, prosecution were located in the commissionerates and this too impacted the the daily working of the revenue and police departments. The cabinet also approved giving powers of executive magisterial powers to the police commissioners, additional commissioners, joint commissioner, assistant commissioners, and deputy commissioners of police.