NAGPUR, June 25: In a surprise move, the State Government has abolished the posts of Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) by upgrading all the police ranges in the State, except Nagpur. Now, an officer of the rank of Special Inspector General of Police (Spl IG) will be in charge of these ranges instead of the DIG.According to available information, the proposal for upgradation of these ranges was initiated by Director General of Police (DG) Arvind Inamdar, a few months back. Inamdar's upgradation proposal was recently approved by the State Cabinet. However, the Nagpur police range will be headed by a DIG. Dr Satpal Singh, presently serving as Additional Commissioner of Police in Mumbai, has been transferred to take over as the DIG of Nagpur range.
Dr Singh had earlier served as the Superintendent of Police (SP), Gadchiroli in Vidarbha region.
On the other hand, the neighbouring Amravati range, reasonably much less troublesome than its Nagpur counterpart, will be controlled by Datta Choudhary, aSpl IG. The ranges which have been upgraded include: Pune, Aurangabad, Nanded, Nashik, Thane, Kolhapur and Amravati.
Talking to The Indian Express, a senior police official observed that the Nagpur region has already a Spl IG (Anti-Naxalite Cell) and this might be the reason for not upgrading the range. ``If the range upgrades, there may be a clash of egos between the same rank officers in the range and hence the decision,'' another officer pointed out.
However, a highly-placed Mantralaya source put the entire exercise down to appeasement of the Indian Police Service (IPS) officers in the State by the saffron alliance government to make them available for more avenues of promotion.
The decision has paid rich dividends to the IPS batch of 1974 and 1975. All the IPS officers of these batches, including one of 1976 batch, have been promoted as Spl IGPs.
The IPS lobby in the State has, however, another story to tell. According to them, the Indian Police Service officers of the 1977 batch in otherStates have already been promoted as IGs and hence reorganisation of State police force was much needed to make more avenues for promotion of IPS officers.On the other hand, a section of IPS officers are unhappy over the move to abolish the concept of Deputy Inspector General of Police in ranges. They pointed out that the posting and promotion of IPS officers could have been made on the model of Madhya Pradesh, where a zonal IG controls a couple of ranges. The Deputy Inspector General of Police is the in-charge of range there, they said.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
