Police face staff crunch, still plan booths at six more Metro stations

In the wake of increased footfall of passengers on Delhi’s Metro stations, Delhi Police’s Metro unit will set up a police booth outside six stations in couple of months, in addition to the 22 booths which they currently have.

“We will have one police booth each outside the Metro stations of Central Secretariat, Lajpat Nagar, INA, Mandi House, Janakpuri (either East or West) and Udyog Vihar in one or two months. The demand has already been approved and building of structures in some of the locations have already started,” Jitendra Mani, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Metro) told Deccan Herald.

“Till the booth is not ready, staff of the booth will operate out of some other building near the stations,” Mani added.

Police booths just outside the Metro stations are meant to handle complaints by passengers and those who work on the station premises.

“Every such booth has minimum one policeman equipped with facilities to handle all the complaints related to crime and law and order,” Mani said.

Delhi has 134 Metro stations and only 22 of them currently have a police booth outside the station.

Apart from the CISF, which is a dedicated force assigned to the security of all Metro stations in Delhi, Delhi Police’s Metro unit manages the overall area in and around the stations. However, plagued with the problem of limited staff, the Metro unit has to manage the affair with the help of other departments.

“Due to staff crunch, we have to ask for additional deployment of manpower from different departments of the Delhi Police during certain days like January 26, Diwali, August 15. To guard 134 Metro stations spread all over the city, we have strength of less than 500. We need at least a force of 4,000 personnel to handle the law and order situation of all the Metro stations effectively,” said Mani.

All Metro stations are expected to witness a massive increase of passengers on January 1 due to the launch of the Delhi government’s odd-even scheme. Delhi Police have asked for an additional deployment of personnel to tackle the situation.

“Although the immediate pressure will be handled by the CISF, we have also asked for additional personnel and hopefully will get it. We are confident of handling the situation very well,” said Mani.