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PUNE: In a startling revelation, Pune police commissioner Jayant Umranikar said on Saturday that there are only 6,500 policemen to protect the 60 lakh inhabitants of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.

Umranikar was speaking at a panel discussion on the topic ‘Punawadi to Hinjawadi’ organised by the D.S. Kulkarni group as part of the annual ‘DSK Gappa’ event.

Admitting to a severe shortage of personnel, Umranikar urged citizens to be alert owing to the current state of affairs. "The character of the city is changing. It has a large floating population. On the other hand, the police are short-staffed and under pressure. Moreover, bandobasts, VIP visits and security provisions during festivals also take up a lot of our time."

Speaking about the crumbling infrastructure and worsening traffic woes, he pointed out that there are only 450 traffic policemen to man 1,477 traffic junctions.

"The city has 20 lakh vehicles. But roads are in a bad shape, although there is an improvement over last year. Further, the civic body frequently undertakes digging and road works," Umranikar said, adding that the police should be involved in road design as they can give inputs to enhance safety.

Some panellists attributed the worsening state of the infrastructure to the politicians’ lack of vision and political will.

Former Congress corporator Satish Desai and BJP MLA Girish Bapat refuted the charge, saying that the information technology (IT) industry had been attracted to the city because of the politicians’ vision. He opined that the public needs to be more proactive. "People should become more responsible voters and come out to vote in larger numbers. They must also question politicians over development issues. Merely criticism is not going to solve problems."

Madhav Kulkarni, director of IT company Cognizant, said that although the IT sector has grown at a tremendous rate in the city in the last decade, problems still remain. "Problem areas like power, air connectivity and infrastructure could be an obstacle to the sector’s further growth," he maintained.
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