Chhattisgarh Project

With a view of developing communication and cooperation between the police and communities, the community policing initiative involves the training of police officers, to resurrect beat policing to increase visibility of the police officers' and help the community to participate in policing by establishing community liaison groups who can help facilitate a constructive working relationship with the local police.

Chhattisgarh has a total strength of civil police and armed police of 20350, personnel out of which 11841 is the actual strength of the civil police (including both men and women) and 8509 are of the armed police. The gender balance in the police organisation needs to improve since the women make up only 5.10% of the organisation. Out of the total police personnel, there are 6.24% scheduled caste members, 18.18% scheduled tribe members, 0.97 % muslims while the rest of the 74.59% are made up of others.

There are no police zones in this state. Interestingly, the zonal Inspector General of Police heads a police range in the state and presently there are 5 ranges. He state has a total of 20 police districts, 88 police subdivisions, 313 police stations (out of which 210 are rural while 103 are urban in nature). There are 3 women police stations as well.

The present organisational structure is as shown below:

Source: Police Headquarters, Raipur 2005

Police Strength in Chhattisgarh (2003-2004)

The state has severe paucity of personnel as most police stations have less than 10 staff and some others have between 11-20 personnel. Only 26 police stations have a staff of above 51 personnel. However, if this is seen more closely even the actual staff strength are often not available as the personnel are involved in several other duties other than law and order or investigation duty.

The number of police officers available for the population is very low. In Chhattisgarh, 59 police person serve nearly 1 Lakh population. This is considerably low considering that the all India average is 137. Police are often responsible for large areas made relatively inaccessible by lack of roads and dense forest cover. The personnel also have relatively poor equipment and little or no infrastructure. Below is a chart the present sanctioned personnel in the various departments in the organisation.

Source: Police Headquarters, Raipur

In addition to initial staff shortages the numbers are not increasing in proportion with the fast-growing population as the recruitment process has practically stopped in the last few years. In late 2005 and early 2006 there has been both recruitment of the constabulary and the sub inspectors. A typical example is the police station of Mahasamund district, which encircles 360 villages and oversees an average of 450 to 500 offences every year, with a team of only 1 inspector, 1 sub-inspector, 2 assistant sub-inspectors, 4 constables and 14 constables. Or the Civil Lines police station which has the highest population density in Raipur area covering a radius of 3 to 4 Kms with 37 personnel: 1 inspector, 2 sub inspectors, 4 ASI's, 6 head constables and 24 constables. For more information on Chhattisgarh Police visit: http://164.100.150.68/rtiupload/rti/110.pdf

Crime in Chhattisgarh

Chhattisgarh police handles a total of 189453 cases and 45511 IPC cases. According to the National Crime Records Bureau the present crime situation is as follows:

Source: Crime in India, 2004

Other Crime Snapshots

According to Crime in India, 2004, and this is based on rate of total cognisable crimes, Chhattisgarh ranks:

• Third in all India crime committed against Scheduled Tribes
• Fifth in all India crime committed against Scheduled Castes.
• Eleventh in all India crime committed against Women.