If everything goes as per the plan, the city will soon get four new police stations. A proposal in this regard has been sent to the police headquarters in Chandigarh to upgrade four police posts to police stations.

For constructing the buildings of these police stations, decks have been cleared to get the identified land transferred from various government departments to the police department.

Highly placed police sources told Newsline that the police department has sent a classified proposal to the higher authorities. In the first category, the police department has sought land for constructing the buildings of four-proposed police stations at Sherpur Chowk, Bus Stand, Meharban and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar.

Sources said that for the proposed Sherpur police station, the Municipal Corporation’s 3.1 acre land at the Sherpur village has been identified, out of which one acre land has been sought by the police department.

Presently, the Sherpur police post is situated on 1,421 square yards land.

For the proposed Bus Stand police station, 4,573 square yards of the Punjab Roadways land has been sought by the police department. At present, the Bus Stand police post has been constructed on a 573 square yards land. For Meharban police station, the police department needs one acre from the panchayat of the village. Presently, the Meharban police post occupies 250 square yards.

For Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar police station, the police have zeroed-in on a chunk of land belonging to the Ludhiana Improvement Trust and require 5,382 square yards.

Sources said that under the second category, the police have sought the transfer of other departments’ lands on which five police posts — Janakpuri, Sherpur Chowk, Sunder Nagar, Tibba Road and Millerganj—are presently operating. These police posts are functioning from the property belonging to MC, PWD or village common lands and the police department has sought transfer of these lands.

The police have also proposed to get other suitable lands for 20 police posts which either function from government or private land but the land is insufficient. These police posts include Basant Park, Dhandari Kalan, Mundian Kalan, Grain Market, Malakpur, MERADO, Ramgarh, Katani Kalan, Kitchlu Nagar, Ghumar Mandi, Raghunath Enclave, Daba, Dharampura, Jagatpuri, Dugri, Moti Nagar, Atam Park, Tajpur, Lalton Kalan and Kochar Market.

The police stations of Division number 6, Division number 8, Model Town, Haibowal and Shimlapuri and the police posts of Sunder Nagar, Sherpur, Jamalpur, Atam Park, Kochhar Market, Miller Ganj, Tajpur and Ghumar Mandi have been constructed by encroaching upon the MC land. According to sources, some of these police stations or posts have been constructed on the lands meant for parks.

Initially, the MC kept pursuing this matter with the police department but to no avail. Last year, a meeting was held between the MC and the police officials in which it was decided that the police department would buy the land from the MC at government-approved rates.