Accepting a proposal from the police department, chief minister J Jayalalithaa, who is also the home minister, is likely to announce the merger either at the Independence Day parade on August 15 or during the state assembly's budget session that starts August 4.
The merger has been proposed to improve coordination and communication between the police in city and the rapidly growing suburbs. But the decision may mean that suburbanites may have to travel to the Egmore commissioner office to lodge complaints while earlier they had one in St Thomas Mount.
The police department had come up with two proposals. Plan A suggested a complete merger of city and suburb. But the united commissionerate will be divided into two zones – with the dividing line running east-west along Chepauk and Poonamallee. Plan B recommended that the St Thomas Mount police district, currently under suburban limits be included in city. The government has reportedly favoured Plan A. "This decision not only revives the Greater Chennai police commissionerate concept but also facilitate better policing, good administration and coordination," a senior police officer told TOI.
Many in the police community have welcomed the proposal. "Peripheral areas are growing very fast. More and more the lifestyle, mindset and traffic flow patterns of the suburbs are becoming similar to the city. I feel that the policing was better under the one-commissioner system until 2008. If the merger happens, crime prevention and detection will improve," former DGP V Vaikunth told TOI. During his service, Vaikunth, in 1995, did a study on the Madras metropolitan policing system. Based on his report, the then AIADMK government had extracted St Thomas Mount, Ambattur and Madhavaram police districts from Chengai East and merged them with city.
The merger proposal has been criticized by a few officers, especially those in the suburb. They say that it would be difficult to police and administer faraway places from the city. Also, residents from the suburbs will have to travel a long distance to come to the commissioner's office and file complaints. "Instead of just the commissioner being of IG rank, every police district must be headed by additional commissioners of IG rank. Two deputy commissioners along with two assistant commissioners should be provided to take care of the district. This means that people can go to the additional commissioner with complaints," Vaikunth told TOI.
Supporting the merger idea, former DGP WI Dawaram said: "Chennai harbour, airport and other major office premises should be come under city police limit," he told TOI.
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