Hyderabad: Hundreds of home guards work as ‘orderlies’ at inspectors’ and other high-ranking officials’ houses despite an end to the practice in 2009. “After joining the service, I was asked to work at a DIG’s house. For four months I did gardening and painted the earthen pots and arranged them. In fact, the “madam’ was giving the instructions,” said a home guard, on condition of anonymity.
There were two recent cases: At the house of a Saroornagar police station inspector a male home guard was found giving message and a woman home guard was found giving massage to an assistant sub-inspector at Jogulamba Gadwal district. Mr M. Mahendar Reddy, Director-General of Police, had asked officials to stop the practice of using home guards for other purposes than they had been recruited. He had issued instructions to keep a tab on their duties.
Home guards are hired to assist the police in traffic regulation and for maintenance of law and order. There are 24,000 home guards in the state and are paid Rs 400 per day. The government recently increased it to Rs 19,000 per month and regularised their services. “This is still only on paper. More home guards are made to work as orderlies to take care of pets, gardening, washing, and ironing. Some work as house drivers. At the station, home guards’ status is reduced to a class IV employee. They bring tea, serve guests and officials,” said M. Sai Teja, general secretary of the All-India Home Guards’ Association.
Despite the assurances on welfare and performance, not much seems to have changed for them. “Humiliation is the order of the day. A few officials appoint them as drivers and cooks at the cost of taxpayers’ money,” said another home guard. In 2016, 12 home guards were found doing menial jobs at the house of a senior police official. However, the official denied allocating any work to them and blamed his subordinates for it.
