JOIN USIf going by the record, it wouldn’t be a surprise as only two of his predecessors have lasted for three years and more.
According to the norms set by the government, the tenure of those in higher positions in a district-deputy commissioner, superintendent of police and police commissioner is three years. However, it remains only on papers.
According to the list of police commissioners who have served in the past, though the city police was classified into a commissionerate (earlier SP of the district was the head of both rural and urban parts) in 1989, the city witnessed three police commissioners in a span of two years. V V Bhaskar, who retired as STF chief during anti-Veerappan operation later, was the first officer to decorate the coveted seat here on November 22, 1989. However, he could remain in the seat for only six months.
Dr K S Krishnamurthy succeeded Bhaskar on May 26, 1990, but only for 10 months as he too was shifted on March 26, 1991. The irony was, even his successor Soorath Prasad didn’t stay for long as he received the transfer order on July 10, 1991. Till date, he remains the officer for having served for a brief period of only four months.
Lucky was his successor K S Mandegar who broke the myth of ‘brief stay’ heading the police here for one year and five months from July 10, 1991 to December 13, 1992. It was a period of ‘long stay’ as H R Kasturirangan was the police commissioner for two years and five months (December 28, 1992 to May 06, 1995), followed by Kuchchanna Srinivasan (May 06, 1995- July 08, 1996), Kempaiah (July 08, 1996- November 06, 1999), C Chandrashekar (November 17, 1999 to December 21, 2002), Bipin Gopalakrishna (December 21, 2002- November 07, 2004), Praveen Sood (November 07, 2004 to June 25, 2007), Bhaskar Rao (June 25, 2007 to January 03, 2008), Dr P Ravindranath (January 03, 2008- July 14, 2008), Dr S Parashivamurthy (July 14, 2008- June 20, 2009) and Sunil Agarwal (June 25, 2009- September 02, 2011 (considering the transfer order). Among them, Kempaiah who later took voluntary retirement from the service, was in the seat for longest of three years and four months followed by Chandrashekar- three years and a month.
Achievements
* Sunil Agarwal: Namma Mane Police, mobile police control room, CCTV cameras to keep track on happenings, award for crime detection among others.
* Dr P Ravindranath: Arrest of seer sri Ganapathi Sachchidananda ( who was subsequently released).
* Praveen Sood- Installing maximum number of signal lights to streamline burgeoning traffic, which also fetched him an award.
* Kempaiah- Modernisation of police stations which were in sorry state and sanctioning of new station buildings.
* H R Kasturirangan- Wiped out rowdism with anti-rowdy squad which later became city crime branch (CCB).