7,000 Home Guards to be appointed to help police force

Bangalore, December 13:  In view of the shortage of police personnel in the State, Home Minister K.J. George has said that the government will appoint 7,000 home guards to help assist the police department.

“There is a shortage of 22,000-odd police personnel in the State, which has a population of approximately 6.5 crore. The strength of police personnel is only one lakh. The process of recruiting 8,500 personnel is under way. Twenty per cent of the recruited personnel will be women,” he said.

He added that they would relax some of the required qualifications during the physical test (like height and weight) so that a large number of personnel including tribal community members would have the opportunity of being recruited.

Free rations

The Home Minister was speaking at the inauguration of the new Basaveshwarnagar police station here on Friday. Mr. George said the government would extend the provision of free rations to jail wardens across the State. The Food and Civil Supplies Department, which provides the rations to the police department, would also provide it for the Prisons Department every month, he added.

The Home Minister said that 11,500 houses would be constructed for the police department across the State in the coming year.

There is a shortage of 40,000 houses and this is the first step to address the shortage, he said.

Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy stressed on the need of recruiting more traffic police personnel in the city with increasing number of traffic violations by motorists.

New training schools

Speaking earlier at the passing out parade function of the 28th batch of armed police constables at the Armed Police Training School in Yelahanka, the Home Minister said six police training schools would be set up in the next three years.

The schools would come up at Bangalore, Kadur in Chikamagalur, Chitradurga, Mysore, Hubli and Dharwad. As many as 455 constables from across the State participated in the parade on Friday. The trained personnel would be deployed in 12 armed police units in the State, said K.S.R. Charan Reddy, Inspector-General of Police (Training).