Bengaluru, 6 March

The Karnataka Police has issued an order to replace the long-standing practice of orderly system in the department, under which police personnel were deployed as orderlies for senior officers to carry out domestic work, officials said on Friday.

The order, issued on 19 February by Director General and Inspector General of Police MA Saleem, follows a government directive to revise the system under which constabulary staff were attached to senior officers to carry out personal tasks, they said.

Officials said these non-policing duties often included cooking, cleaning, other household chores, and even dropping off officers' children at home.

With the new order, the aim is to end the practice of deploying police personnel as personal attendants and instead utilise them for core policing duties, they added.

According to the order, 373 follower (attendant) posts have been created in the Civil Police, subject to the abolition of an equal number of such posts from the Karnataka State Reserve Police.

Until recruitment rules are notified and appointments made, personnel for these posts will be engaged on an outsourcing basis with wages fixed according to minimum wage norms, it said.

The order has directed that police personnel currently assigned as orderlies be relieved immediately, and the concerned Commandants, Deputy Commissioners of Police, Deputy Superintendents of Police, and inspectors have been asked to submit compliance reports to their respective unit heads.

Under the revised system, senior officers will be entitled to a limited number of orderlies. The DGP and ADGP may have three orderlies (against the current six), while IGs and DIGs or Commandants will be allowed two and one such personnel, the order said.

For officers who will no longer be assigned police personnel as orderlies, a monthly allowance instead of such staff, ranging from Rs 8,000 per month for certain senior officers to Rs 2,000 for others, will be provided, according to the order.

The allowance will be released only after confirmation that police personnel have been relieved from orderly duties, it added.