LOGISTIC REQUIREMENTS

OF INDIAN POLICE

Greek verb ‘logistikos’ meaning compute or calculate, and French verb

‘loger’ meaning lodge are the roots of the English noun ‘logistics,’ meaning
supply of supportive attributes like manpower, transport, communication
reticulation, weapons systems and other facilitators in any operation as planned
in advance, and accurately trace the true nature of an effective logistics in terms
of computed and calculated planning, and lodging or infixing the supportive
tools as calculated and planned in advance to be lodged at right time, place and
occasion to meet the needs of the operation for efficient performance and
results, ipso facto investing logistics and its execution a managerial edge. Logistics
and logistics support imprimis are managerial tools built on the bedrock of the
management techniques. Logistics au fond is perficient material management run
with an edge of precise time management and efficient space management,
made possible with right foresight, creative vision, incisive planning and accurate
execution. Evolution of norms for logistics in police organisations is byword for
the desire for the application of management principles to policing and police
organisations. It represents induction of the faculty of ratiocination to the field
of policing and police organisations. It is a visionary step and prognosticates the
aurora of the scientific age in police organisations. Logistics norms differ only
in details from the Police Station level to the sub-division level to district level
while rest on the same bedrock of broad managerial techniques.
PRIME VECTORS
Both Police Station and District Police Administration are the pillars of the
policing structure of India with sub-divisions providing the links between the
two. Sub-divisions derive their sustenance and draw manpower and logistics
from the Police Stations, ergo strong and efficient Police Stations mean strong
sub-divisions. In exceptional cases, sub-divisions can always depend upon the
strength of the district police force. Sub-divisions as such do not have
independent existence apart from the Police Stations under them and the district
police administration that guides and controls them. Therefore, discussion on the

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logistics requirements of the Police Stations and the district police administration
inter se covers sub-divisions too.
Police Stations and district police administrations as the basic structures of the
policing need to be pollent units capable of independently tackling crimes,
security and law and order issues from their own provenances, so that higher
units are free to focus on larger issues of countrywide dimensions sans
distractions. For this to happen, the Police Stations have to be full-fledged units
as far as their manpower and logistics requirements are concerned without the
need of asking and waiting for the help extra muros. A sense of autarchy and
autarky is basic here. The change brings pride to the unit and boosts morale
bringing in high motivation and inculcating lofty purpose to the job of policing.
The end result will be quality and often competitive performance of very high
order in policing which sadly is a mere dream in the extant policing structure of
India.
Police Station setup of present India grievously falls short in logistics and
infrastructure support whether it is in manpower, transport, communication
network, weapon systems or financial powers. Though district police
administrations are in far better position than the Police Stations in all
compartments en face respective requirements, they too are far from an ideal
position in respect of their requirements. While Police Stations must look to the
district police administration for help for manpower and logistics support for
every uncommon situation, the district police administration in turn looks to the
state headquarters for elbow space. Even begging other government
departments for transport and other infrastructure facilities is not unheard of.
This is not an ideal situation by any stretch of imagination to any police setup and
should stop.
ARMED POLICE UNITS
Both Police Stations and district police administrations should become self-
contained units in respect of manpower, transport facilities, communication
reticulatum, weaponry and other logistics requirements. Every Police Station
should convert into a nidus of police functions under an officer of the rank of
Police Inspector assisted by scores of Sub-Inspectors in charge of different
policing functions like crime, traffic, headquarters, intelligence, law and order and
armed police. Every Police Station must have a unit of its own armed reserve
under a PSI that provides men also for extraneous duties like guards, courts,
summons, orderly services apart from being the striking force. The armed police
units of the district police administration need to be strengthened in most districts
and properly trained.

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INTELLIGENCE GATHERING
Both Police Station and district police administration setups as far as
intelligence gathering is concerned is in extremely poor shape uniformly in most
states of India, save a few like Jammu and Kashmir where the need of self-
preservation perforce dictated terms to strengthen the intelligence apparatus.
Intelligence is the bedrock of effective policing and sine qua non for professional
policing. Intelligence gathering and analyses apparatchik is the principium among
the core logistics supports that makes difference to the quality of the policing
process in both the Police Station and district police administration levels.
Districts do have structures to handle both the crime and law and order
intelligence, though poorly equipped and seldom made use of, while the same
in the Police Station levels is almost nonexistent. Intelligence gathering
apparatchik needs to be strengthened at both the levels to enrich policing process
with relevant intelligence. An officer of the rank of PSI with adequate staff in a
Police Station should be in exclusive charge of collecting both the crime and law
and order intelligence to strengthen the hands of the officer heading the Police
Station.
MINI POLICE COMMISSIONERATES
Police Stations as centers of policing functions must work as mini police
commissionerates sans magisterial powers and treated as such in importance and
powers. Trust begets trust and trust sprouts responsibility. Once Police Stations
revive respectability and importance on par with that of the British vintage, they
may regain their whilom aureole at no time. This is so also with the district police
administrations. Indeed, there are the issues of corruption and misuse of powers
that are beyond the scope of this discussion and it suffices to state that
appropriate checks and counterchecks should be in place to counter such
eventualities.
NIDUS OF POLICE FUNCTIONS
Pollent Police Stations as the centers of police functions justifies fewer police
stations around and irrationalize the present donnert trend among the top-brass
of crying wolf for creating more and more police stations at every possible
opportunity and howling hoarse for many more to create ‘gulli-gulli police
station’ situation with most of them weak and incapable of independent
existence and just meant as mere show-pieces for the public consumption and
adding to the welter in jurisdictional and other complications. The epinosic
response is owing to the copycat mindset so prolate among the Indian police
leadership of the post-independent vintage. Quantity is an irrelevant concept in
the extant age of hi-tech world, and transport and communication explosions

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render the world increasingly smaller every passing day. What is required is
quality. The stress must be on resourcefulness and response time. Fewer Police
Stations, each a nidus of the police functions at strategic locations and self-
dependent in its manpower and other logistic requirements of transport,
communication, weaponry and related facilitators is the need of the hour.
Control room oriented policing with shortened response time are capable to
tackle any kind of police emergencies and contingencies within a given area.
District police administrations must function as the custodian and provider of
special techniques, high-tech gadgets and higher counseling and guidance to the
benefits of the Police Stations apart from its extant conventional duties.
CONTROL ROOMS
This brings the issue of control room oriented policing that suits best in urban
areas to the fore. Shift systems round the clock and response time are the key
factors in such a policing system. Logistics support becomes the crucial issue in
the control room oriented policing system as the effectiveness of the system
depends tout a fait on effective logistics designs, planning and management in
place. Police Stations fully self-dependent in manpower and other logistics
supports like transport, communication, weaponry and other facilitators alone
can handle control rooms successfully for perficient policing. Such a system
presupposes committed manpower working on round the clock shifts and
requiring high morale. High morale in turn depends on job satisfaction and right
job culture that are built on perfect man management practices. All these issues
need to be tackled one after the other for efficient policing. Indian police of
present days is a far cry from those objectives.
MANPOWER
In a country bogged down with endemic unemployment, and steeped in
cheap labour, manpower should not be a problem though eurhythmic quality
production may often become an issue. No discussion on manpower is
complete without the factors of morale, motivation, competence, discipline and
commitment are taken into account. No analysis on logistics is complete without
the production factor of the manpower is assessed.
SHIFT SYSTEM
Policing being a round the clock responsibility, a three-shift system is sine qua
non in a grass-root policing unit like the Police Station. And unlike now, the
system must be statutorily defined and duly molded and rounded off for
effective functioning with clear-cut division of labour in place. Lack of this clarity
and arbitrary day-to-day allotment of duties on one’s own fancies by lower ranks
in the Police Stations is the radical of the entire maelstrom in man management

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noticed in police stations these days resulting in low and inefficient turn-out of
work. A well-defined shift system and purposeful man management policy
directed towards high motivation and morale should work as the nostrum to the
malady.
EFFICIENT MAN MANAGEMENT
Sound incentive schemes based on the innards of the human psyche and latest
managerial techniques and committed leadership models can do the tricks to
maximize the output with the minimum input and save the criminal wastages in
manpower that are common features of the present man management in Indian
police, where a few islands of manpower are over-worked while most wanze
precious man-hours without productive output. Any step to break this epinosic
trend will save Indian police from gargantuan manpower wastages. This aspect
needs priority.
An important feature of the efficient man management is best utilization of
the available manpower talents. Indian police of the post-independent vintage
is notoriously profligate in frittering away and even curbing precious human
talents that land on its lap by its good fortune. An example is that of a brilliant
police officer from an Indian state who made name as a poet, an intellectual and
an original thinker on police and policing subjects with scores of published books
on poetry and policing subjects to his credit and a popular writer on police
subjects on all major English newspapers, and well-known for his immaculate
conduct and foursquare character, being persistently and consistently harassed
gratuitously for decades, denied promotion for more than twenty-one years
without offering a reason in the ambience of no reasons existing, often denied
facilities normal even for his posts and repeatedly forced to work in the rank of
Superintendent of Police under his far less talented and far less upright juniors
from his own batch now in the rank of IGPs. Such atrocities are possible in
Indian police these days. Reason for the reductio ad absurdum of the man
management in Indian police of the present vintage to this scale is just jealousy
and fear among the higher-ups of being overshadowed by his superior talents.
His fault lies in the denial to approach the court of law in propugnation of own
interests in spite of promptings from well-meaning seniors and his preposterous
pride in deciding that what are his, must come by themselves sans promptings
from any quarters and philosophizing che sara, sara. He continues in the plight
even now without promotions. This is an example of the criminal wastage of
human talents apart from cruelty and crimes involved. Just thinking how best and
to what advantages an efficient organisation would have made use of his talents
by providing right incentives rather than curbing and crushing his normal

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opportunities makes this example of negative norms of the Indian police an eye
opener. Such perversions and prevarications of the man management norms of
epinosic dimensions must stop. It is a different story that he did not wither away
like most in similar situations and made big name and brilliantly succeeded in
other avenues. It is true that true talents cannot be hidden and even villainy of the
top brass of the police has limits in curbing and crushing the talents of the
fonctionnaire lower down. This is the brighter side of the spiel.
PRECIOUS MAN POWER
Every employee in any efficient organisation is a precious asset. This is not
because labour comes at enormous cost, but because of the presence of innate
potentialities in every person and its mammoth utility were they are adequately
tapped. The problem lies in the need and competence to extract the potentialities
and talents. Police organisation has a long tail of hierarchy of seniors after seniors.
The billion-dollar question is whether this long tail of seniority of the police
department has any relevance as far as leadership and leadership qualities are
concerned. The answer is a big “no.” Present Indian police is least bothered
about the need of sound leadership and leadership qualities in its body as far as
seniority go and sadly leadership and seniority are synonymous in its diction. That
must stop and the organisation must constitute per se a climacteric norm to
enable the resorgimento of the Indian police to draw it out of its present chilling
hiems.
None realizes the importance of every single human hand available as the
USA does, and the care taken and the investment made on each hand in American
armed forces are legendary. India and Indian police though cannot fully follow
the American ideal because of its financial constraints and other reasons, the
model sine dubio deserves avizefull consideration to aemule as a vaulting norm
adapted to Indian milieu. Human being a natura rei is potential of extending and
shrinking to any scope created for him. This is so also in work environment. A
man or woman treated as lowly and dispensable as it is in the constabulary and
other lowly ranks of the Indian police, shrinks au naturel to adjust to the space
created for him, and expands and extends to be der Unsterbliche ubermensch if
he or she is provided for and treated as such. Indian police lacks this insight to
the human psyche and pays heavily in terms of human cost for the grave
incompetence. How fast Indian police realizes this fault, so good it is pour-soi.
Maximum output out of minimum resources is the motto here. Maximum
output should be the norms of manpower management in Indian police at all
levels rather than going for blind increase in manpower strength at every possible
occasion. High morale, high motivation and job contentment, high professional

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pride, adequate rights and responsibilities, reasonably sound infrastructure and

logistics support are the claves for productive and perficient policing and make
difference to the quality of the policing whether it is in Police Station levels or
district police administration levels. This brings the issue of logistics support to
the fore.
LOGISTICS SUPPORT
Logistics and infrastructure supports are the core of effective policing and
also serve as the multiplier of manpower. Transport and communication
logistics are the eyes and ears of the perficient policing. In the age of hi-tech crimes
and criminals, high-level logistics support is sine qua non for the policing to be
successful. Right logistics support has four dimensions or factors to be useful and
effective in policing: quantity factor, quality factor, relevancy factor and time
factor. Quantity factor covers availability of adequate logistics support; quality
factor covers availability of latest and hi-tech logistics support; relevancy factor
covers the need of logistics support being relevant to the needs of the policing;
and time factor refers to the availability of the logistics support at right occasion
and time. Inadequacy in any of these factors certain to affect the quality of the
policing and needs foremost attention of the police leadership to keep the police
and policing in top gear.
In Indian situation, the principium of the four factors namely the quantity
factor itself often is a major hurdle because of financial constraints and other
problems though recent rise in terrorism alerted the bureaucratic and political
leadership to awaken to this problem and make more and more logistics support
available to police de grado in grado. But, the quality factor continues to be a
major pain in the spine. Criminals are often found in India better equipped than
the police as far as hi-tech gadgets and even crucial intelligence are concerned.
Indian police lacks adequate organizational strength and expertise to keep up
dated to the research explosions in the world market in hi-tech gadgets in
transport, communication, information and weaponry systems. This shortfall
needs to be attended on priority if Police Stations and district police
administrations to be effective in defeating crime and criminals in their own
games. Whatever done at present in this field are sporadic attempts sans systemic
efforts. This lacuna needs to be rectified.
Relevance and time factors are logistic maneuvers tout court involving human
assessments and decision making in the process of the policing and depends assez
bien on human excellence involved and requires improved human qualities. That
comes by practice, skill, training, commitment and mature leadership. These
factors also need close attention in efforts to give quality policing to the country.

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MAINTENANCE
Any talk on logistics is incomplete without a discussion on maintenance,
which is the weakest link in the mindset of the Indian psyche. Maintenance
inherently is the byproduct of a disciplined mind that is anathema to the Indian
psyche. Naturally Indian police is pathetically poor in maintenance aspect of
whatever it does. One factor responsible for this perilous assuetude is the cost
factor involved. The second factor that brings about this neglect of the
maintenance structure in the organisation is the lack of appreciation of the need
of the maintenance in running an organisation and carrying out its operations.
This Achilles’ heel of the Indian psyche holds its sway in police organisations also.
Sound maintenance of the logistics infrastructures and other assets is sine qua non
for sound policing and perhaps gets precedence in importance over acquiring
new gadgets and assets. A sound police organisation just cannot ignore this
crucial need that considerably contributes to the success of police operations.
FINANCIAL POWERS
Police Stations as the nidus of police functions with considerable manpower
and huge logistics support means in its possession and responsible for their
maintenance perforce need considerable financial powers for themselves so that
they can look after themselves without waiting for sanctions from above. This
investment also boosts the confidence and self-reliance of the Police Stations as
independent units apart from bringing respectability and accountability to them
unlike now. The advantage here is both physical and psychological and needs
priority attention.
STRATEGIC LOCATION
It be a Police Station, district police administration or any other police unit,
its effective functioning depends very much on small details like its location and
building also. They have to be located at a place decided upon after careful study
of the issues involved and operational facility and convenience considered not
only for the easy access to the public, but also for more crucial strategic reasons
of operational considerations like facile movements, easy logistics support,
access to hi-tech equipments, easy access to key manpower assets, convenience
for secret operations et cetera. This important factor is often ignored in Indian
police and it is common to find a Police Station situated in a locality outside its
jurisdiction in urban areas and district police administration being located in an
unplanned shabby rented building in a busy and strategically unsound locality.
Easy availability often guides such decisions in Indian police. Such casual
approaches in such key decisions should stop and proper norms should be laid
to bring order in such key decisions and avoid concomitant mishaps.

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Norms are mere standards, or more precisely, standard customs to be set or

evolved. Indian police as defined and structured by the British administration
more than a century back served the British administration and its objectives in
a far less complex milieu appreciably for nearly a century and later. But, in a
situation of panta rhei, the antianus reticulation is increasingly becoming unfit and
incompetent to the changing trends of the crime and criminality and may become
entirely irrelevant to the changed complexities of crime and criminality if
immediate corrective steps are not taken and new norms are evolved and set for
the posterity. In a donnert police structure steeped in blinkers and mental
inaction, the very idea of evolving fresh norms for manpower and logistics is a
highly welcome initiative and deserves hearty plaudite.

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