Trained constables ending up as cooks, manual workers and gardeners at the houses of senior police officers in the state police is soon likely to be a thing of the past. Taking a cue from Orissa Police, state police are planning to replace orderlies with Class IV employees from the State Reserve Police (SRP).

A clause in the Gujarat Police Manual allows IPS officers, DySPs and all police head quarter in-charge officers in the state to engage constables and head constables to “assist” them.

In practice, however, the clause is widely misused by senior officers, and many constables end up as domestic helps at their homes.

In Gujarat, an IPS officer gets three constables to assist him, a DySP and a police headquarter- in -charge are allowed two and one policeman respectively.

Estimates are that more than 700 constables and head constables in the state presently work as orderlies for senior police officers.

“We are thinking of replacing orderly constables and head constables with followers from the SRP. Followers are Class IV employees appointed under the SRP Act and therefore fulfill all disciplinary standards. They can ideally be used for genuine assistance to a police officer like attending to his telephone calls, receiving and delivering urgent messages, screening visitors and accompanying officers on tours,” said Additional Director General of Police, (Law and Order), Sudhir Sinha.

Against the sanctioned strength of 17, Gujarat presently has 15 SRP battalions. There are six to seven companies in these battalions consisting of 138 personnel, including eight followers, who work as cooks, cobblers, barbers and tailors in the company. The followers fall in the class IV category and are given a payment of nearly Rs 5,000 a month.

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