Top heavy Punjab police sets a new record as for the first time ADGP level officer to head a city, a range in Punjab
Kanwar Inder Singh/ February 28,2023
Punjab is one of the states having a top heavy police with officers 3 officers in the DGP rank, 11 officers in the special DGP and 20 officers in the rank of ADGP are working in the state.
In spite of these officers, three Punjab Police officers of DGP level Samant Goel, Dinkar Gupta, Harpreet Singh Sidhu and ADGP Kapil Dev are on central deputation .
The after effect of this “top heavy” has come to fore today, when the state government issues a posting order of two ADGP level officers to the posts held by junior level officers.
Punjab government issues a transfer, postings order of Naunihal Singh an IPS officer of 1997 as commissioner of police, Amritsar, replacing Jaskaran Singh who has been transferred on another key post, as IG intelligence, Punjab and Surinderpal Singh Parmar who has been appointed as ADGP, Bathinda Range.
Naunihal Singh, who was recently promoted as additional director general of police (ADGP) on January 31,2023 was inspector general (IG) personnel and Surinderpal Singh Parmar was IG, Bathinda range before his promotion as ADGP.
This is for the first time that an ADGP level officer is going to head any Commissionerate in Punjab and any ADGP level officer a range.
ADGP Naunihal Singh will head the Amritsar city area only where as the rural area of the Amritsar district is headed by Satinder Singh, SSP and Border Range comprising Amritsar (Rural) ,Batala, Gurdaspur and Pathankot districts is headed by DIG Narinder Bhargav.
The Commissionerate system was implemented in Punjab in 2010 and Amritsar, Jalandahar and Ludhiana cities were made police Commissionerate to meet their “dynamic and complex law and order and internal security requirements because of their fast urbanisation, huge floating populations and migration resulting in fast changing demographic profile of residents and perpetual threat from the hostile neighbour that continued stoking problems from across the border”.
In the commissionerate system an inspector general or deputy inspector general of police level officer heads the city who is entrusted with powers of executive magistrate with matching duties and accountability under the provisions of CrPC at cutting edge, resulting in their accessibility and interface with public and transparency.
Under the commissioner of police , a joint commissioner of police equivalent to senior superintendent of police and deputy commissioner of police equivalent to superintendent of police of a district, works.
Amritsar an important city is also a historical city having international border, airport and is going to host a meeting of the G20 education working group from March 15 to 17, 2023.
Top heavy Punjab police sets a new record as for the first time ADGP level officer to head a city, a range in Punjab. Keeping in view the prevailing law and order situation, the state government is in no mood to take any kind of risk and might has deputed these senior officers on these post, meant for a lower rank officer.
On the other hand , a SSP comes under deputy commissioner in a district. But with the posting of an ADGP level officer as commissioner of police might sent a wrong signals in the public , bureaucracy as the gap between the deputy commissioner and ADGP level is much more.
(royalpatiala.in News)
