It’s back to square one

Ex-police commissioner Dadwal scrapped 27 police posts. His successor is going the other way

It's back to square one

Ex-police commissioner Dadwal scrapped 27 police posts. His successor is going the other way

Two top cops don't think alike. Well, former Delhi police commissioner YS Dadwal and his successor BK Gupta differ at least on one important issue. Recently Gupta, the incumbent, cleared a proposal to open new police posts (chowkis) and de-notified a few stations opened by his predecessor.u00a0

Dadwal had scrapped 27 police posts, citing them irrelevant to contributing in better policing and had converted most of them into police stations and had added a remarkable number (63) of new police stations.Sources said that Nehru Place and Okhla police posts, which were closed down earlier, have already been reopened by Gupta whereas Sangam Vihar, Govind Puri and Pul Prahalad Pul are going the same way. Two of others - Aligaon and Garhi - are in proposal.

In 2008, Dadwal had scrapped the police posts as part of his 'delimitation programme'. He was of the view that there is no use of chowkis as no cases are registered there. So he had converted many of them into police stations.

Police commissioner BK Gupta told MiD DAY that he is completely against the view that there should be more police stations in the city, for they are just a burden to the exchequer.u00a0

"One of the main concerns is manpower. A police station needs more police personnel than a police post, so by opening police posts we save a lot of manpower. Secondly, it depends on the demand. For instance I de-notified Dhaula Kuan police station and turned it into a police post.

After that, I opened South Campus police station on the basis of demands by students. Earlier, they had to go to Dhaula Kuan for police assistance. You should keep the demand factor in mind," Gupta said.u00a0