Karnataka govt mulls second police commissionerate for Bengaluru

Belagavi: Home Minister G Parameshwara told the Council on Thursday that the government would examine establishing a second police commissionerate for Bengaluru city, and would take a decision after studying the effectiveness of having multiple police commissionerates in other metropolitan cities like Mumbai and Delhi.

Congress MLC K Govindaraju, who moved a calling attention motion on the issue, and Leader of Opposition Chalavadi Narayanaswamy stressed the need to bifurcate the existing police commissionerate with two police commissioners, in the wake of the explosive growth of the city, resulting in increasing crimes and traffic congestion, after Parameshwara said there is no such proposal under consideration by the government.

Agreeing for reconsideration, the minister said, “We will send a team to other metropolitan cities which have multiple police commissionerates, to study whether they have resulted in improvements, and then we will take a decision.”

Earlier, Parameshwara was of the opinion that creating a second post of police commissioner for Bengaluru city was not essential at present, but that need may arise in future under ‘Greater Bengaluru’ concept.

“We feel bad while speaking about the traffic situation in Bengaluru, and all blame the police. But, the problem is not with the police, but is related to the infrastructure. Additional posts of police officials have been created, while infrastructure projects like outer ring road and tunnel road are also planned,” he noted.

Govindaraju felt that one police commissioner cannot handle a city with 1.5 crore population. After Chalavadi Narayanaswamy said some policemen are tarnishing the image of the entire department, Govindaraju suggested checking the background of policemen while posting them in Bengaluru. T A Sharavana suggested bringing in stricter traffic rules.