The Indian police are an overworked lot – 73% of them do not get weekly offs

Our films depict policemen as pot-bellied characters who are invariably the butt of jokes. Exceptions are certainly there like the police officers of Gangajal and Sarafarosh who do not tolerate any nonsense. But, a study conducted by Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) and Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) has revealed that 90% of police officers in India have to work for more than eight hours a day and 73% of the police staff do not get a weekly off even once a month.
They are always at the beck and call and have to turn up for emergency duties even when they get their rare off days. This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 1 June 2015.

One of the outcome of these long working hours is that police officers were not fit and healthy and their behavior with the public is rude and leaves much to be desired. These further tarnish the image of police in general.
It was a massive study and involved staff of 12,156 police station, 1,003 SHOs and 962 supervisory officers – their ranks ranged from constables to IGPs, in 319 districts in 23 states and two Union Territories.
All nine police stations types - metropolitan, urban, urban-rural mixed, rural, crime, traffic, women, tribal and others were covered in the survey.
The survey found that nearly 90% of police station staff works for more than eight hours a day. More than 68% of SHOs and over 76% of supervisory officers indicated that staff members in police stations were on duty for 11 hours or more per day. 27.7% SHOs and 30.4% supervisory officers reported that their staff worked for more than 14 hours a day.
The study concluded that the existing system was not in consonance with Indian labor laws nor was in compliance with provisions of Article 42 of the Constitution. Moreover, it also out of sync with international norms.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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