Tourist Police grappling with staff crunch

Regardless of the recommendation by the Parliamentary standing committee in 2014 which had sanctioned 266 posts for Tourist Police in Delhi, only 30 police personnel out of them are deployed at important tourist locations in order to deal with crisis situations. 

This also indicates that the Tourist Police are lacking at least around 88.72 per cent of their personnel.

To add to the dilemma of the Tourist Police, their major duties include helping missing or stranded children as well as identifying people who are injured and providing assistance to the needy. With the lack of police personnel, that becomes an increasingly rigorous task.

The idea of Tourist Police was first put forward by the former Delhi Police Commissioner, Krishna Kant Paul back in 2004. 

Tourist Police, which is an initiative of the Tourism Department in collaboration with the Delhi Police, deploy ten mobile police vans at ten strategic locations. 

These include Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, New Delhi Railway Station, Hazrat Nizammudin Railway Station, Rajghat, Red Fort, Qutub Minar, Palika Bazaar, Janpath, India Gate and Paharganj (Railway station side).

Ranveer Singh, Additional CP, Operations said, “There are ten police vehicles stationed at ten important spots. In each vehicle, there is one driver, one ASI or <g data-gr-id="19">sub inspector</g> and one <g data-gr-id="20">gun man</g>. In short there are three policemen assigned to one vehicle.”