KARACHI, Jan 4: Police reforms in Sindh, scheduled to be implemented from February 1, do not contain any clearly stated amount for running the affairs of a police station, whereas the whole exercise, costing about Rs494.94 million, has no proposal for improvements in salary packages and working conditions of upper and lower police subordinates.

Though facilities have been proposed for about 425 investigation teams to be formed in Karachi, no steps have been taken to end functional corruption in police stations, as no funds have been given to any police station to run its daily business.

At present, the Karachi Range’s total annual budget is Rs1.44 billion, out of which a sum of Rs1.35 billion is utilized in payments of salaries etc, while the remaining amount of Rs95,282,850 is to be spent by the five districts of police, CIA of Karachi, and Range Office for one year covering all their expenses, including transport, machinery, equipment, electricity charges, cash rewards and even the secret service funds.

According to current scales, a police constable gets monthly conveyance allowance of Rs96, house rent Rs466, washing allowance Rs50, medical allowance and TA/DAs Rs90 and Rs80 respectively.

With a maximum salary of Rs3700, a police constable in Pakistan is generally expected to perform his duty at par with those in advances countries.

Under the new police setup, work load at a PS is expected to be reduced as all cases of investigation are to be handled by the investigation side and routine work is to be performed by the ward and watch wing.

While a crime investigation department unit has been formed to handle cases of terrorism and sectarianism, unlike Punjab # there is no provision of a separate riot control unit in Karachi police.—PPI