Senior IPS officer Vivek Phansalkar is the new Chief of Mumbai Police

The Maharashtra Government appointed IPS officer Vivek Phansalkar as the new Commissioner of Mumbai Police. The appointment of Phansalkar is important during the political turmoil in Maharashtra which is going to face a floor test.

A 1989-batch IPS officer, Vivek Phansalkar was serving as the DG and MD of the Police Housing and Welfare Corporation, before his appointment as the Mumbai Police Commissioner.

Vivek Phansalkar will replace incumbent Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey as the latter retires on June 30. IPS officer Archana Tyagi has been given additional charge of the Maharashtra State Police Housing DG, the post held by Phansalkar.

In 2018, Vivek Phansalkar was appointed as Thane Police Commissioner, succeeding Param Bir Singh, who was then posted in Mumbai as Additional Director General of Police (law and order).
Prior to this appointment, Phansalkar had been Additional Director General of Mumbai’s Anti-Corruption Bureau since 2016.

Phansalkar started his career as ASP Akola in 1991. He was ADC to Governor Dr PC Alexander in 1993. He served as SP Wardha and Parbhani from 1995-98. He was then posted as DCP Nahsik in 1998. He took over as SP CID Nagpur in 2000 where he had a three year stint. He was then moved as Director of vigilance for Cotton Corporation of India.

He was Additional Commissioner of Police for Pune and Thane for three years from 2007. He served as Joint Commissioner of Police (traffic), Mumbai from 2010 and then Jt CP Admin from 2014. He was promoted as ADG in Maharashtra ATS where he served for an year since 2015. He then took over as ADG ACB Mumbai from 2016-2018.  

He was appointed as Police Commissioner of Thane in 2018 where he had a successful stint.

The incumbent CP Sanjay Pandey brought many key changes in the functioning of Mumbai since he took over. Pandey had a different approach to interact with citizens and introduced many interactive sessions with the Mumbaikars to modify the functioning of the police force.

He was at the forefront of getting opinions from the citizens and organized many social initiatives and citizen forums which impressed the people. The Sunday Streets started by Pandey achieved phenomenal success. Remove Khataras and Drugfree Mumbai were also some of the successful campaigns of Pandey.

Phansalkar had led Thane Police from the front and has been perceived as a leader who motivated the force for better work. 

Thane, a sub city of Mumbai faced immense traffic issues, frequent criminal cases of organized crime, real estate mafia and more. Phansalkar as the Police Commissioner of Thane changed the view of the citizens and brought tremendous control on the crime rate. After Phansalkar was moved to police housing corporation, IPS officer Jai Jeet Singh was appointed as Thane Municipal Commissioner.