M A I N   N E W S

With large numbers resigning for better prospects
The IPS has vacancies for 630 officers
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 13
It will be several years before the country overcomes the acute shortage of police (Indian Police Service ) officers. In January this year the Parliament was informed that as on January 1, there was a shortage of 630 IPS officers and the annual intake was being increased by 60 additional heads to meet the shortage. But that is clearly not enough.

The northern states, however, fared much better according to statistics made available by the Union Home Ministry. Although Punjab had a shortage of 32 police officers ( 112 against the sanctioned cadre strength of 144), Haryana and Himachal Pradesh were short by just 8 and 11 officers respectively. Uttarakhand was even better placed and missed only two IPS officers.

In sharp contrast, Madhya Pradesh (76), West Bengal (71), Orissa (60), Bihar (48), Karnataka and Tamil Nadu ( 40 each) ,J & K ( 28) faced a serious dearth of police officers. Ironically, a disproportionate number of officers actually get recruited from many of the eastern states like Bihar and Orissa. But with very few recruits from other states keen to serve in these parts, the shortages piled up over the years.

Many of these states also face serious threats from underground outfits and the crisis of leadership in the uniformed force has compounded the drift.

At the end of March this year, out of the 26 ADGP posts at the Centre, as many as 16 were vacant but only one officer was available to fill them.

The shortage has been accentuated by the increasing trend of resignations. Since 2003, some 50 directly recruited IPS officers have resigned from their jobs citing “better prospects and personal reasons”. Out of these 50, a total of 21 quit the service after the Sixth Pay Commission was implemented in 2008. Seven of these officers who quit had been allocated cadres in North-Eastern states, considered a tough posting.

The IPS cadre has a sanctioned strength of 4013 officers while 3383 were actually in service at the beginning of this year.

The MHA had ordered a cadre review and decided on increasing the authorised strength of IPS officers officers across the country to 4730. This number will be achieved over the next three to four years. The government is also exploring the possibility of conducting a limited competitive examination just to recruit IPS officers and fill the gap.

A senior functionary explained that one-third of those who quit after the Pay Commission, had tough postings. Some of the young recruits, when they are picked up by the private sector at salaries which are five times higher, it is natural that they would opt out. Experience in government as an officer, he pointed out, is a huge bonus when looking for jobs outside.

Other factors prompting officers to resign include stagnation, late promotion, arbitrary cadre-allotment, long field postings, arbirary and abrupt transfers, disparity with other All India services and lack of motivation. Little has been done to address these issues.

The immediate need, however, is to recruit more officers as responsibilities of policing are increasing by the day. Post Mumbai, all states now have anti-terror squads, all of them have intelligence collating and disseminating units and officials have to be allocated to study the information collected. More and more officials are also involved on technical tasks like phone tapping or tracking of suspicious e-mails.

With the changing dynamics in the neighbouring countries, the MHA is also looking to beef up its network along the Indo-Nepal border and the Indo-Bhutan border, respectively.