Eight-hour shift: Constable who pushed it

Constable Ravi Patil

IN HIS 15 years with the Mumbai Police, Constable Ravi Patil has never enjoyed a better working environment than in the past several months. While Patil is grateful that the Commissioner of Police, Dattatray Padsalgikar, took the initiative of implementing eight-hour shifts that has been widely welcomed across the force as a key reform in improving the quality of life of lower-rung policemen, Patil’s colleagues acknowledge that it all began with a letter from this unassuming 35-year-old constable. Today, 58 of Mumbai’s 94 police stations are implementing the eight-hour shift and the remaining are set to adopt the reform soon. While the idea of a shift system was being discussed for at least two decades, it was Patil who finally took a step forward and drew up a detailed plan on how such a system could work. For constables habituated to 16-hour workdays, the idea of an eight-hour shift was little more than a dream until then.

Patil says he started his research in 2013 and in February 2016, he met the commissioner and pitched the idea formally. He says Padsalgikar was keen to ensure that the modalities were clearly understood and after making a couple of changes, the plan was put into action. Padsalgikar launched it as a pilot project in Deonar police station, where Patil is posted, before expanding it to more than half of Mumbai’s police stations in a phased manner. Patil says he faced no objection from anyone. “Life after the implementation of the 8-hour reform has changed drastically,” he says. He is able to spend more time with his family and pay attention to some of the household matters. He said he found his fellow constables more at ease since the reform was implemented.

Multiple rotations on the 8-hour shifts has cut down stress for everyone, although they are well aware that in case of a crisis, they could be called in even if their shift has ended. Patil says all policemen were fine with that. With Padsalgikar set to complete a year as the chief of Mumbai Police, the constabulary has a new objective — to create a record of sorts by having the most number of photographs of a single person — the commissioner — as the WhatsApp display picture of users. As messages are exchanged among the policemen across the city to change their WhatsApp DP to an image of Padsalgikar, Patil says it’s a fitting show of gratitude for having implemented a long-overdue reform.