CAG: Delhi Police work hit by manpower shortage, old wireless sets, defunct CCTVs

New Delhi: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, in its report on performance audit report on manpower and logistics management in Delhi Police, has red-flagged the issue of shortages in manpower has affected investigation of crimes and bringing criminals to justice.

The report, which was presented in Parliament on Wednesday, found that the functioning of the Delhi police is being affected by shortages in manpower. "The MHA had approved 12,518 posts with advice to operationalise 3,139 posts first and then remaining 9,379 posts after deployment of 3,139 personnel on ground. However, due to failure of Delhi Police to recruit against these 3,139 posts, the remaining 9,379 approved posts could not be operationalised," CAG said in its report.

Representation of women in Delhi Police was 11.75 per cent, which was much lower than the desired target of 33 per cent. At the 72 police stations, there was 35 per cent shortage of manpower, it said.

Acute shortage of staff has put police personnel under tremendous strain as their average daily duty hours in the six test-checked police districts (Central, New Delhi, South, Dwarka, North East and Rohini) ranged from 12 to 15 hours against eight hours as prescribed under the Model Police Act 2006, the report said.

The report also observed that the police stations in the selected districts also suffered from shortage of vehicles, which severely limited quick response to law and order situations. The CAG report also observed that the Delhi Police has installed 3,870 CCTV cameras in entire Capital at strategic locations, but about 31 per cent to 44 per cent of the CCTV cameras were found defunct.

As per the report, the wireless communication that the police mainly relies on is two-decade-old trunking "APCO system" and the conventional wireless system sets declined from 9,638 in June 2009 to 6,172 in June 2019 despite requirement has increased over the years.

"There are deficiencies in terms of availability of vehicles, protective equipment like bulletproof jackets, and arms and ammunition," the CAG report said, adding that despite spending Rs 18.5 lakh on development of Himmat Plus and Rs 6.82 crore on publicity of Himmat and Himmat Plus apps, the response of the users to the app was lukewarm.