The Barisal Metropolitan Police is reeling under manpower, accommodation and transport crisis even four years after its inception in 2006.
With a jurisdiction area of 182 square kilometres, the BMP started functioning with only old Barisal kotwali police station with three police vans.
In May 2010, three more police stations were opened. Of them, the Biman Bandar (airport) police station has a jurisdiction area of 39.75 sq km, covering four BCC wards and five unions of sadar and Babuganj upazilas, with only one pick-up van, the Bandar (river port) police station with 49.19 sq km, covering four unions of sadar upazila, with only one pick-up van and a trawler and the Kawnia police stations with 30.96 sq km, covering six BCC wards and two unions of sadar upazila, with only one pick-up van.
With the opening of the three new police stations, the jurisdiction area of the kotwali police station came down to 62.17 sq km covering 20 BCC wards and two unions of sadar upazila.
The BMP has asked the government to sanction 23.72 acres of lands for the metropolitan police lines at Rupatali, 2.88 acres of land on divisional secretariat premises for the BMP headquarters and metropolitan magistracy and 1.8 acres of land at Sagordi for other supporting offices, acting BMP commissioner Bhanu Lal Das said.
The plans and proposals were sent to the police headquarters in Dhaka on May 17, 2007 and from there they were forwarded to the ministry of home affairs on June 7, 2007 for approval.
After the approval, only acquisition and earth filling of the site selected for the BMP police lines started paying Tk 28 core to the land owners, the acting BMP commissioner informed.
The BMP headquarters is now situated on the old and abandoned premises of Barisal Irrigation Project, sharing the district police lines and police hospital premises.
Of the recently opened police stations, airport and port police stations are running their activities on rented premises and the additional number of vans sanctioned for the new three police stations are yet to be supplied, he said.
The BMP sources said about 180 vital posts, out of the sanctioned 1,228 posts of the BMP, have been lying vacant since inauguration.
Among the vacant posts are one post of commissioner, three out of four deputy commissioners, one out of three assistant deputy commissioners, 14 out of 20 assistant commissioners, five out of 30 inspectors, 33 out of 107 sub-inspectors and 123 out of 1,228 constables.
Besides, out of 51 posts in the civil section only 27, including one head assistant, one stenographer, one accountant, one upper division assistant, two typists and computer operators and a reader, have been filled in the last two years.
The acting BMP commissioner said the problems needed to be resolved immediately to reap the benefit of the upgraded structure, which covers 137 square kilometres more than the Barisal City Corporation areas, to serve an estimated 10 lakh people.
