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Bhubaneswar: The trend of shunting out Director Generals (DG) of Police in untimely and unceremonious manner continues in Odisha with KB Singh too failing to continue in the top post till his superannuation.
It is now almost a decade that not a single IPS officer after Gopal Nanda has been able to hold the top post till retirement. After Manmohan Praharaj, Prakash Mishra and Sanjiv Marik, KB Singh has been removed from the post in an unprecedented and unceremonious way.
In fact, only three DGPs out of last 10 have been able to complete two years in their posts including NC Padhi, Manmohan Praharaj and Prakash Mishra. Both Mishra and Padhi had a humiliating exit after corruption charges came up against them.
The outgoing DGP KB Singh was on a visit to Sambalpur yesterday when Odisha government’s Home department issued a circular regarding his transfer and replacement by RP Sharma as the new police chief.
Whether the sudden transfer and reshuffle of other senior officers was premeditated by Odisha government or a fallout of performance remains unanswered.
It is also unclear if Odisha government replaced KB Singh with RP Sharma to provide the latter ample time to create base before the 2019 general elections.
However, former police administrators believe that such transfer decisions might have been taken to make the police department more ‘efficient and active’ as senior officers might get stressed for being at the top post for long.
Also Read: DGP RP Sharma assumes office
“There is a lot of pressure of work on a DGP and no matter how efficient an officer is, they too get tired after working for a year or two. Hence, the Government might have thought if a new officer is appointed, they can work with more enthusiasm,” said ex-DG Bipin Bihari Mishra.
While on the other hand, former DGP SN Tiwari feels, “Till there are no allegations against any officer and those are proved, such transfers should not be allowed.”
Though the Odisha government had brought a bill to fix the tenure of police chief at two years, it remains a far cry after the Governor returned the Police bill in 2015.
