Chandigarh, Jan 22 (IANS) The Punjab government Friday announced that police commissioner system will be introduced shortly in the state's three main cities - Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana.

Each commissionerate will be headed by an officer of the deputy inspector general (DIG) rankand will have powers of an executive magistrate besides other powers.

At present, each of these cities has a senior police superintendent to head the whole district's police force.

While Amritsar is home to the holiest of Sikh shrines 'Harmandar Sahib' (popularly known as Golden Temple), Ludhiana - Punjab's biggest and most populated city (35 lakh population) - is one of the biggest industrial hubs in Asia, and Jalandhar is a major centre for industry, business, immigration, sports and culture.

Amritsar has an international airport and is just 30 km from the international border with Pakistan.

A state government spokesman said the new system is being introduced to meet the complex law and order and internal security requirements of these cities due to their fast urbanisation, huge floating populations and migration.

Claiming that the move was aimed at getting rid of the colonial legacy in policing, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, who is also home minister, and Industries Minister Manoranjan Kalia said the new system will cater to modern policing in view of the fast changing demographic profile and nature of crime in industrialised and high-tech emerging societies.

Badal said the new system will also ensure single window system for licensing under Arms Act, Explosives Act and other rules to ensure better delivery of these and other allied services.

He pointed out that other states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and recently Haryana too had adopted the commissioner system.

Badal said the proposed system has no financial implications and will not require additional manpower as the mobilisation of human resource would be done through internal structuring.

He added: 'The commissioner system will ensure unitary chain of command and singular responsibility, which is the norm in the urban policing in the modern policing system in the country and world. The system will meet the requirement of urgent preventive action, quick decision in rapidly changing law and order situations as the state has witnessed in recent past.'