Pramesh S Jain
The Karnataka government on Friday announced the appointment of Senior IPS Officer,1986 Batch officer,Praveen Sood as the Director General and Inspector General of police of the state.His appointment comes following Neelamani N Raju’s retirement from service.
Praveen Sood,Director General of police,Criminal investigation department,Special Units and Economic Offences,Bengaluru has been appointed as Director General and inspector General of police (head of police force)Karnataka.According to official sources,Sood will have a tenure of about four years as DG&IGP,the longest for any IPS officer in recent times.
Praveen Sood born in 1964,graduated from IIT Delhi,joined IPS in 1986 and started his career as Asstt.Superintendent of police,Mysore in 1989.He served as Superintendent of police,Bellary and Raichur before getting posted to Bengaluru city as Deputy Commissioner of police,Law and order.
In 1999,he proceeded to foreign deputation as Police Advisor to government of Mauritius for 3 years.He got exposure to European and American Police during his stint in Mauritius.An alumnus of IIT Delhi,Sood has previously served as the Commissioner of police of Mysore city focused on transforming haphazard and unregulated traffic situation in Mysore city and was also instrumental in arrest of terrorists of Pakistan Origin.
Sood has previously served as the commissioner of police,in the year 2017,and he was lauded by citizens of Bengaluru as the tech-savy city police chief,he took a initiative and launched some flagship programmes including “Namma 100” as Dial-100 promising every call from citizen in distress.With 100 lines managed by multilingual ‘Communication Officers” 24/7,and support of 276 Emergency Response Vehicles (Hoyasala),spread all over Bengaluru city;Namma 100 or my-100 was receiving,on an average,6000 calls a day with average intervention time of 5 seconds and response time of 17 minutes within 3 months of its launch.
He was also instrumental in launching “Suraksha”app and “Pink Hoyasala”managed by all-women cops especially for the women and children in distress.
Praveen Sood who as served as SP of Bellary,Raichur,and Mysuru.is lauded for taking initiatives to improve investigation and create awareness to prevent cyber crime in the IT city.It was during his tenure,the CID collaborated with Infosys foundation to establish state-of-art “Centre for cyber crime investigation,Training and Research”to augment the capacity to investigate ever increasing cyber crime cases.
He has been decorated with Chief minister’s Gold Medal for excellence in service in 1996,Police Medal for Meritorious service in 2002 and President’s Police Medal for Distinguished service in 2011.Besides he is recipient of Prince Michael International Road safety Award in the year 2006 for his contribution towards road safety and traffic management and national E-Governance Gold Award for ‘Most innovative use of technology for Traffic Management in the year 2011.
Neelamani N Raju,the first women,DG&IGP of Karnataka state was posted in October in the year 2017.The IPS Officer also served as the Secretary in the Embassy of India in Kathmandu Nepal,the former DG&IGP was seen emotional during her farewell ceremony at KSRP ground Koramangala.
Smt.Neelamani N Raju,after handing over the Baton as charge to New DG&IGP,Praveen Sood,Said,I served the police department for 36 years and I have retired today on this day I would like to thank the Karnataka government and the State Administration and the people of Karnataka.Their love and affection has helped me come this far and do my job with utmost loyalty.For the belief the state government had in me i have put all my efforts and tried to maintain law and peace in the state.
She even said,Today is a day about our long journey on my side i would like to say that I had a wonderful tenure of very long and stable innings.I had with the three successive governments,and it was really nice that all the governments gave me full support.
All of you all officers gave me an instant support,because of which i could carry out the task assigned to me and faith impose by the government and to fulfill it without any problem.So I would say that of course,Praveen knows working in Karnataka police is very big achievement instrument and today i am relieving the office with a very sense of professional,satisfactions,and sense of completeness that an IPS officer can dream of having joined the service.She even said,with everybody’s support with god grace,I have been able to do that for that I really thank the current government and all of you that you all made it possible for me and all the very best Praveen she added.
Three senior IPS officers,of Karnataka retired on 31st January.A grand farewell parade was organized by ADGP,KSRP,Alok Kumar,and other officers to bid the long service IPS officers a Farewell Bid to,Smt.Neelamani Raju,MN Reddi,DGP,Fire&Emergency,Raghavendra H Auradkar,DGP Housing Corporation,the retired officials family members with,Principal Home Secretary to government,Rajneesh Goel,with ADGP,AM Prasad with other Senior officers were present.
Praveen Sood,Director General and Inspector General of Police who took charge as 41st DG&IGP,of Karnataka State,who was accompanied with his Wife and Daughter,Mrs.Vinita Sood,and Aashita Sood Agarwal,after assuming charge he said,firstly i would like to thank the State Chief Minister,BS Yediyurappa,and Home Minister,Basavaraj Bommai,for giving me this opportunity to serve the 6.5 Crores people of Karnataka.
Sood said,it is a very big responsibility madam,Neelamani has handed that responsibility with great responsibility in good times,bad times,and i assure that will continue to do that but not alone with the support of each of you.It is a team work that we are looking forward to if we are altogether we can serve 6.5 crore people.
Not only we have to look after the requirements of public,but we also have to require to look after the requirements of the One lakh policemen it’s a One Lakh strong police force.Because unless we take care of them as a welfare department they will not be able to take care of the general public.It just a co-incidence that I have moved from one very beautiful office those who have visited the CID Office in recently to much more beautiful office thanks to madam,this office has been transformed in last one and half year and its my privillage to occupy this office.
Policing has to become Citizen Centric Policing.We cannot go on adding numbers we cannot go on adding policemen endlessly.We have to leverage technology for policing and that will be our focus that will be my focus,that will be the focus of everyone,to make our policing,our lakes,our efforts to the citizen centric and deliver those services to the citizen through technology.Finally he said thank you very much I seek everyone’s support including my friends in media.I hope you will criticize us but also support us when we do something sometimes we do something good also he added.
