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All work, no play for policemen: Study

Last Updated 06 February 2015, 20:37 IST

Nearly 75 per cent of police personnel claim they rarely manage to get a weekly off while a majority of Station House Officers acknowledge that their subordinates have to work more than 11 hours a day.

This came to light in a government-sponsored study, “National Requirement of Manpower for 8-Hour Shifts in Police Stations”, conducted by a team led by former IPS officer Kamal Kumar, who earlier headed National Police Academy.

According to the study, most personnel working in police stations put in “inordinately long hours of duty” and this is in addition to them not being able to avail weekly offs.

"More than 68 per cent of SHOs and over 76 per cent of supervisory officers stated that staff members of their police stations were on duty for 11 hours or more per day. About 27.7 per cent of SHOs and 30.4 per cent supervisory officers reported that their PS staff worked for more than 14 hours a day,” it said.

The study was conducted among 12,156 police station staff, 1,003 SHOs and 962 supervisory officers across 319 police districts in 23 states and two Union Territories.

A 1977 study conducted by the National Productivity Council had shown that the normal working hours of a subordinate police officer duty ranged between 10 and 16 hours per day, seven days a week. A computerised survey by the Tamil Nadu Police also showed that constables worked on an average 14 hours a day.

“What is even worse is that even during their off time/off day, most of the staff (over 80 per cent) are recalled to duty, off and on, to deal with emergencies of law and order or other works,” it added.

To meet the requirement of efficient policing on 24x7 basis, the study recommended, shift system of working in police stations is an “unavoidable imperative”.

Many countries have their police stations working in shifts. In India, shift system is not recognised in the Police Manuals of most of the states, except Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tami Nadu, the study said.

About 73.6 per cent respondents said they were unable to avail weekly off even once a month. However, only 7.3 per cent SHO respondents confirmed this situation.

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(Published 06 February 2015, 20:37 IST)

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