express news service
BHUBANESWAR: The alleged suicide of the inspector in charge of the Gangapur Police Station, Dev Kumar Gamang, has once again raised the alarming question: Is the Odisha government concerned about the mental and physical well-being of its police force?
Gamang, 40, reportedly killed himself on Friday with his service weapon at his official residence in the presence of three officers. Ganjam police claimed that he suffered from mental health problems in recent years.
Police personnel work under tremendous pressure. The nature of the work aside, poor working conditions, long working hours, lack of holidays and regulated days off leave them vulnerable to stress. It just isn’t addressed in a structured way.
In addition to working 12-14 hour days, they cannot afford to spend time with their families and this creates conflict. Police personnel also skip festivals to ensure they are on duty.
One of the main reasons is the shortage of personnel in the workforce and vacancies. The current strength of the Odisha Police is about 70,000, but there are at least 10,000 vacancies in different wings of the force.
2019 data from the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) on police population ratio says that Odisha has 67 police officers to serve a population of one lakh. In Andhra Pradesh, it is 85, Gujarat (87), Uttarakhand (95), and West Bengal (97) and are part of the bottom 10 states.
At the level of inspectors, the State suffers from vacancies. Odisha’s sanctioned strength for inspectors/reserve inspectors is 1,150 where there are 100 vacancies. According to BPR&D, the sanctioned strength of sub-inspectors/reserve sub-inspectors is 3,498 and for assistant sub-inspectors/reserve ASI is 4,673, but there are 1,080 and 1,488 vacancies respectively.
IICs, SIs, and ASIs involved in major case investigations in addition to law enforcement duties face increased workloads that create mental stress. A senior official noted that forces such as the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Border Security Force (BSF) have devised organized responses to periodically monitor the mental and physical health of their personnel.
“In Odisha, we have to cover some distance in this regard. We have police hospitals where doctors treat police officers and their families. However, they mostly provide curative treatment. In terms of providing preventative treatment, including counseling to staff, more needs to be done in the State,” he added.
Former DGP GC Nanda agrees. If the police’s work overload is not dealt with immediately, their mental and physical well-being will deteriorate further in the coming days, he says. “A decade ago, the resources were not adequate, but still manageable. However, the infrastructure and resources are very inadequate in these times and negatively affect the state police,” he said.
Aside from addressing mental wellbeing issues, there is a lack of upskilling and training. According to the Status of Policing in India 2019 report by Common Cause and Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), only 14.3% of IS/ASI in the State received in-service training, compared to the national average of 17 %.
Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Maharashtra and Gujarat are the states that have not been able to provide in-service training to a large proportion of staff nor have they incurred significant expenditure on training.
According to Anuradha Mahapatra, founder of the Manam Foundation, a non-profit organization that facilitates mental well-being, an outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic severely affected the well-being of police personnel across the country.
“The work of police personnel has always been very challenging, and the demanding hours of work during the pandemic to enforce lockdowns and help authorities manage containment zones added to their stress. This caused an overload of work and police personnel could barely spend time with their families,” he said.
The government should form batches of police stations in each region and set up a counseling station for each group. “The advice stations should be outsourced and not linked to the police department. This will ensure that law enforcement personnel can comfortably share their concerns and confidentiality is maintained. Furthermore, senior officers should also organize mental awareness sessions for their subordinates every three to six months,” he added.
DGP Sunil Kumar Bansal said that the Odisha police have facilities to check and take care of the health problems of the policemen. “We are a big force, but incidents like Gangapur IIC can never be ignored. It was a very unfortunate incident, and efforts have always been made to reach out to officers/staff showing any signs of depression or anxiety. We are thinking of setting up camps to review health parameters (physical and psychological) of police personnel, ”he added.
Force under tension
The current strength of the Odisha Police is around 70,000 but there are at least 10,000 vacancies in different wings of the force.
2019 data on police to population ratio says that Odisha has 67 police officers to serve a population of one lakh
Odisha’s inspector/reserve inspector force is 1,150, with 100 vacancies
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