AP cops opt for less pay

By U Sudhakar Reddy
Hunting down armed Maoists in jungles is surely more risky and dangerous than netting corrupt officials using decoys. A stray bullet can even end your life. But senior IPS officers and even the constabulary prefers the former job to the latter.
They would even manage traffic in a busy street than be shifted to the Anti-Corruption Bureau though it pays 30 per cent more than routine jobs. Three out of the six joint director posts in ACB are lying vacant and there are no takers for them.
An additional director post, several posts of inspectors and lower level officers are also lying vacant.
Insiders say that there are not many officers who want to take up these posts because they are not “lucrative” enough (the pay hike notwithstanding). Also, the ACB is widely seen as a dumping yard where officers who are not in the good books of political bosses are kept in suspended animation. Cops would rather prefer jobs in the two antiMaoist forces, the Special Intelligence Branch and Grey Hounds.
Here they get 60 to 80 per cent more pay apart from abundant “extra funds”.
Right now three superinten dents of police, Ms Charu Sinha, Mr Sampath Kumar and Mr Srinivas are working as joint directors of ACB.
Ms Charu Sinha, who was doing a good job at Mahbubnagar, was shifted to ACB as some bigwigs in the government didn’t like what she was doing.
In ACB one post is lying vacant for several months and another went vacant after the joint director, Mr Ravi Varma, was “rescued” by the DGP, Mr S.S.P.
Yadav, and posted as West Zone deputy commissioner of police.
Mr Yadav was director general of ACB prior to Mr R.R. Girish Kumar and knew its troubles firsthand.
The other post of joint director fell vacant after Mr Ravi Shankar was promoted as DIG and posted as additional director in ACB itself.
At present, three joint directors are doing the job of six directors in ACB.
Most cops are uninterested in ACB postings since no big cash incentives are given to them even when they nab a corrupt official.
The authorities do not even give them a pat on the back.
On the other hand, agencies such as SIB and Greyhounds get huge cash incentives for key captures and “encounters”. Insiders say that even local informers are sometimes paid in lakhs of rupees.