52 OC-based police stations to be upgraded to IC-based ones

The Mamata Banerjee government will soon upgrade 52 Sub Inspector (OC) based police stations to Inspector-in-Charge (IC) based police stations. A proposal for upgradation has been sent by Inspector General of Police (Headquarters) II Anand Kumar to the Home and Hill Affairs Department.

"This will improve the quality of response to the different policing requirements of the area," said a senior police official at the state Secretariat Nabanna. Nine of these police stations will be based in South 24 Parganas district that has recently been split into three police districts for the sake of better administration.

The South Bengal Zone that has districts like South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Howrah (Rural) and Nadia will have 21 police stations, the North Bengal Zone that comprises districts like Jalpaiguri, North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur and Malda will have as many as 15 police stations while the Western Zone that has Purulia, Purba Medinipur, Bankura and Purba Burdwan districts will have 15 police stations.

The proposal a copy of which is with Millennium Post states: "The population under the police station jurisdictions has increased substantially over the years. Moreover markets, shopping malls, schools, hospitals, buildings are being constructed rapidly to meet the needs of the people. Construction of roads including highways (both national and state) is also increasing traffic management. Not only that rural areas are also getting urbanised rapidly which require intensive policing."

The population and the areas of the police stations that needs to be upgraded has also been furnished along with the proposal and the request has been made to accord sanction of OC-based police stations to IC-based police stations at the earliest.

Some of the police stations that are mentioned in the list for the upgrade has an area of more than 500 square kilometres. Basanti in South 24 Parganas has an area of 651 sq km, Rajganj and Malbazar in Jalpaiguri cover an area of 614.82 sq km and 548.86 sq km respectively while Gazole in Malda has 513.37 sq km.