Bhubaneswar, April 20: Inordinate delay in the re-demarcation of the jurisdiction of various police stations in the city has become a major concern for people as they are being forced to travel long distances to register their complaints.

In March last year, the police had started collecting public opinion to reorganise the areas of jurisdiction of Saheed Nagar, Balipatna and Tamando police stations.

The worst sufferers of the problem are the residents of Bankual, Keshura, and Basuaghai and Koradkanta on the city outskirts who face a unique problem of crossing three nearby police stations to reach Saheed Nagar police station to lodge their complaints.

The complainants are forced to travel more than 30 minutes to lodge complaints though there are three nearby police stations - Badagada, Mancheswar and Laxmisagar.

People staying under Khandagiri, Balianta, Balipatna and Mancheswar police station areas are also facing similar problems with the complainants being forced to cross nearest police stations and travel a long distance to lodge their complaints.

The need for the reorganisation has become necessary due to rapid expansion of the city and the growing population.

Khandagiri police station is a case in point. The police station set up in 1883 and covering an area of 70 square kilometres is currently catering to 2.75 lakh residents while Tamando police station, which was created taking the areas of Khandagiri and Chandaka police stations, is catering to only 20,000 residents.

Twenty-two police stations are currently functioning in Bhubaneswar Urban Police District of which Mahila, Energy and Traffic police stations have jurisdiction all over the city.

The distance factor has also led to the delay in response time of vans of police control room. "Most of the time the vans reach after a long time of an incident as those have to travel a long distance. We have been demanding reorganisation of the police jurisdiction for better policing," said Biranchi Das, a resident of Keshura.

Sources said the reorganisation process was being delayed as the process needed participation of other departments such as revenue. "Land documents contain the name of the police stations but once the reorganisation is done, these documents need to be updated," said a revenue department official.

"The proposal for reorganisation has already been sent to the state government and is under consideration. We have been accepting suggestions and grievances from the residents concerned regularly," said deputy commissioner of police Satyabrata Bhoi.