Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday said filling up of vacancies in State police force is a priority of the Government to substantially reduce the critical manpower gap of Odisha Police and Fire Services at the cutting edge level.
The Chief Minister said the State Government attaches utmost importance to employment generation and is committed to improve the delivery of public services to the people at the grassroots level.
Addressing an Induction Ceremony of freshly recruited police personnel, he said these officials will work at the cutting edge level of police and Fire service and their role will be crucial in delivering emergency public services to the people.
Chief Secretary AP Padhi, Principal Secretary Home Asit Tripathy, DGP KB Singh and others were present in the meeting.
“I call upon all the newly recruited officers to dedicate themselves to the cause of public service and show utmost devotion to duty in discharge of their responsibility. You will soon undergo a long and arduous training process in order to equip yourselves professionally to properly discharge your duties of maintenance of law and order, investigation and control of crime, management of traffic, combating left Wing Extremism (lWE) and terrorism and undertaking safety, disaster management, rescue and relief operations,” he said.
Claiming that lWE in the State has substantially been contained, he said various measures have been taken to create security infrastructure to facilitate in combating lWE menace.
Under Police Modernization Scheme, 70 fortified police stations in lWE areas have been taken up. While nearly 56 have been completed, the Odisha State Police Housing and Welfare Corporation (OSPWC) is required to complete the rest within March, 2017.
CMD OSPWC Santosh Kumar Upadhyay is taking up the project on a priority manner. Similarly, infrastructure for deployment of CRPF and BSF companies has been taken up and the forces have been moved into hitherto unattended areas, he said.
As police officers, these personnel will be expected to handle cyber crime, economic offences and other white collar crime as well as extremist related crimes which require a very high level of sophistication in knowledge and application of information technology, the Chief Minister said.
Patnaik said these personnel will be required to adopt more and more advanced applications of forensic science and other scientific aids to investigation.
“You have to be highly pro-active. sensitive and responsive in redressing the grievances of women, children, senior citizens, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other backward and marginal sections of the society. The Fire officers will be called upon to deal with various hazards and be a crucial part of the multi hazard response system in many emergency situations,” he said.
Inaugurating 111 building projects being undertaken by the Police Housing wing, he hoped these infrastructure and manpower will strengthen the police, Fire Services and correctional administration to effectively discharge their duties.
These projects include police stations, maritime police stations, fire stations and jail buildings apart from reception centres and facilities for Mahila and Sishu Desks.
Patnaik said as many as 335 Fire Stations have been sanctioned for the entire State. With this, Odisha boasts of the highest number of Fire Stations per population, the Chief Minister added.