Punjab Police is busy day and night to protect life and property of citizens and maintain law and order. Police personnel have rendered services in every emergency situation i.e. upholding law and order, election, flood and corona. But redressal of challenges faced by police, their capacity building, provision of modern resources and meeting out shortage of personnel needs serious attention.
Retired police officers, on the condition of anonymity, told that there is a lack of manpower in police stations and offices, that every officer has to perform duty for 16 to 20 hours and there is no practice of weekly leave. Similarly, the condition of police vehicles is poor and the rise in petrol prices has created more problems due to which police personnel have to carry the burden for crime control and operations duties.
Training courses play a key role in capacity building of personnel. In modern times, crime trends are changing, so officers and personnel deployed in investigation should be given short-term courses based on modern skills. Likewise, the process of capacity building on modern lines of personnel deployed in all units including traffic police, dolphin, highway patrolling police and CIA should start immediately. Currently, there are hundreds of vacancies in the police from constable level to supervisory officers, for which immediate steps should be taken for recruitment.
The addition of new personnel will reduce the additional work pressure on the force and enable better performance of duties. According to police experts, the lack of resources is directly affecting performance of police, so police should be provided with ample resources and political patronage so that the police as an institution may become strong and the process of protecting people’s lives and property can be improved.
