Chandigarh, Sep 17 (PTI) Haryana Home Minister Anil Vj on Thursday divested senior IPS officer ADGP A S Chawla of all charges for his alleged failure to implement the 'Dial 112' helpline project for over a year.

Vij, who carried out a surprise inspection at the Haryana police headquarters in Panchkula, said he passed these orders on Wednesday.

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Chawla is among the officers from Haryana who has received the President's Police Medal for distinguished service.

He was promoted to the Additional Director General of Police-rank in May 2018.

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Earlier in August 2017, Chawla had served as the Commissioner of Police in Panchkula.

While informing that he has withdrawn all work assigned to Chawla, the minister said they regularly monitored the work of officials and found that A S Chawla failed to make the helpline functional.

Vij said Chawla had been entrusted with the task of implementing universal helpline, an emergency response support system for informing police, fire brigade and ambulance services.

“Neither he updated us nor the work was done. So, I issued orders that all work given to him should be withdrawn. I had issued these orders yesterday and before I arrived here, the DGP had taken away all the charges from him,” Vij told reporters in Panchkula.

Vij said the 1993-batch IPS officer "will now only come to office, mark his attendance without any work being assigned to him".

Sources said Chawla has proceeded on leave.

Chawla was currently having the charge of Administration, Telecom and Information Technology.

On Thursday, as per an order issued by DGP Manoj Yadava, the work pertaining to different branches given to Chawla will now be looked after by three ADGP-rank officers—Alok Kumar Roy, Navdeep Singh Virk and Kala Ramachandran.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)