RAO MAY MERGE SOME CBI UNITS, RENAME A FEW

NEW DELHI: Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) interim director M Nageswara Rao is set to restructure the agency by merging some of the existing units and renaming a few others, officials with knowledge of the development said on condition of anonymity.

After being appointed interim chief, Rao first cancelled around two dozen transfers, effected by his predecessor Alok Verma, who was removed as CBI director on Janaury 10, two days after he was reinstated by the Supreme Court.

Even on Monday, Rao reassigned work to three deputy inspector general (DIG) level officers. “On January 12, the agency’s policy division wrote to all senior officials of the rank of joint director, proposing renaming of a few of the units and merging of some other branches. The officials were asked to send their views by Tuesday,” said a CBI official.

Under the new structure, the agency wants to move the Chennai-based special crime branch, which handles Indian Penal Code crimes such as murder or rape, to Surat where it will function as an economic offences branch. The proposal says since the Chennai zone had two special crime branches — in Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram — one of them should be shifted to Surat.

The second proposal is about merging its existing Bhopal zone with the Hyderabad one. At present, both the zones are headed by a joint director (JD) level officer. Another proposal is to merge Jharkhand branches located in Dhanbad and Ranchi with the Kolkata zone and Patna branches with the Lucknow zone. Similarly, the north-eastern branches too will become part of the Kolkata zone, the official said.