Delhi Police promote 1,342 constables as head constables to speed up cases

It is worth mentioning that at present the total staff of Delhi Police is about 78,000, out of which almost 50 per cent of the staff are of the rank of a constable. Ironically, out of around 45,000 constables, none of them are authorised to arrest an accused or investigate a case. Their work is restricted only to assist the head constables, assistant sub-inspectors or inspectors.

According to sources, though the mandatory number of constables stand at around 46,707 and Delhi Police are already short of staff in this rank too, the current availability has been made also to clear out the stagnation in the lower ranks. “The cops who are constables cannot be utilised to the fullest because of their rank which has a lot of limitations,” the source added.

“Hence, the necessary amendment in the promotional rules have been made to give better avenues, due to which a large number of vacancies in the rank of head constable (Exe) have been made available. On September 12, 1,166 male constables (Exe) and 176 female counterparts have been promoted as head constables (Exe),” R A Sanjeev, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Establishment) said adding these promotions will also decrease the stagnation in the lower ranks.

A head constable can investigate cases such as theft, pick-pocketing, car thefts, and cases under Arms Act, Excise Act, Gambling Act, and Defacement Act. Also, he has been given the authority to arrest the accused.

In January Millennium Post had reported that a special programme on in-house training to constables (graduates) to investigate cases for speedy crackdown was started by Delhi Police. Till date, in the three-month long capsule, two batches of constables have been promoted as head constables and the third batch has recently started the training. Each batch consists of around 150 policemen.

In 2015, Delhi Police managed to solve only 27.32 per cent of the total cases (1,82,644) registered whereas, in 2014, 24.05 per cent cases were solved out of 1,47,237 cases.