Vijayawada: Right from the staff crunch to lack of infrastructure and meagre allocation of funds, problems await for the new Vijayawada police commissioner, Dwaraka Tirumala Rao.While the needs of the city police wing have increased enormously after the city was declared as part of the state’s new capital, the funds allocation stands at same level as it used to be five years ago. The city police have been struggling on many fronts to meet the policing requirements of the capital city. Interestingly, the state government has denied head of the department (HoD) status which would have allowed the commissioner to draw funds directly from the government.During his tenure as Vijayawada commissioner, D Gautam Sawang sent proposals for the HoD status, but the government turned down the request, while at the same time it sanctioned the HoD status to Visakhapatnam commissionerate Renovation of commissioner’s office and incomplete cyber police station from the past one year stands as a glaring example of how the commissionerate is struggling with funds crunch. The construction was started about three years ago, but it has not completed yet. The cyber police station was proposed to start in November 2017, but it was delayed because of budgetary issues.The command and control centre, commissioner’s dash board, integration of technology with internet of things, court monitoring system and digital police beats were all introduced after Sawang become the commissioner. The social outreach programs like Mahila Mitra, Balala Mitra, Vrudda Mitra and reformative initiatives against traffic rule violators also resulted in positive results with reduction of accidents and crimes against women.However, all these initiatives were developed as proof of concept for further enhancement, but the city police could not scale them up with the funds crunch.While the Visakhapatnam commissionerate’s proposal for the HOD status was accepted, the proposals sent by the Vijayawada police was rejected by the home department. “Vijayawada city that needs urgent attention in terms of increasing the capacities of police, but it was not done” said an official on condition of anonymity.The ill treatment towards city police is also evident in terms of allocation of vehicles. The city police have been managing the mobility with the old vehicles, while many of the district units were given new vehicles. While all the higher officials in the department were given new vehicles, the Vijayawada commissioner was not given priority in allocating a new vehicle. “We are asked to fight with our hands tied to the back,” said another senior official in the department, on the condition of anonymity.The city police wing is also struggling with staff crunch since long time and even after four years, the vacancies were not filled up. There is a short fall of 600 personal at various levels in the city police wing.

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