One-fifth of police force just on paper All States & UTs Have Vacancy Of Nearly 4.20L Against Sanctioned Strength Of Over 20.80L Cops

One-fifth of police force just on paper

All States & UTs Have Vacancy Of Nearly 4.20L Against Sanctioned Strength Of Over 20.80L Cops

Vishwa Mohan TNN

New Delhi: Increasing police footprint is one of the prerequisites to prevent crime but India finds over one-fifth of its sanctioned police force merely on paper, leaving the remaining ones to shuffle between law and order duties, investigation and VIP security at the cost of ‘quality’ policing.
    All states and Union Territories (UTs) have collectively reported police vacancy of nearly 4.20 lakh against the sanctioned strength of over 20.80 lakh policemen across the country. The gap due to the huge vacancy takes a toll on policing on the ground.
    It also raises a question mark on the sincerity of states and UTs in filling up these vacancies which have been there for years. The matter is raised during all police meets every year but there is hardly any improvement in the actual strength of the force. Data compiled by the home ministry shows that the actual strength of the police force in the country as of December 2011 was 16.60 lakh against the sanctioned strength of 20.86 lakh with Uttar Pradesh leading the pack in reporting vacancies.
    Other states which reported huge vacancy include Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Haryana and West Bengal. Among UTs, Chandigarh and Delhi too face shortfall.
    The shortage of cops for actual policing is compounded if one takes into account the number of personnel deployed for VIP security. Though latest figures are not available with the ministry as different states have different levels of deployment for security, data for 2010 shows that 16,788 VIPs across the country were guarded by 50,059 police personnel which is 21,761 more than what was actually sanctioned for their security.
    TOI had earlier reported how the vacancy position and excessive deployment of police for VIP security left only one cop for 761 common citizens as against three cops for one VIP.
    Incidentally, Punjab, which reports a vacancy of nearly 8,000 personnel, deployed the maximum 5,410 cops for VIP security followed by 5,001 personnel by Delhi and 3,958 by Andhra Pradesh.
    Excessive deployment for VIP security and the overall shortage due to vacancies has led to an adverse police population ratio (number of policemen per one lakh population) in the country. Though the smaller states have a good ratio, the shortage mainly affects bigger states like UP, Bihar and West Bengal where vacancy position is quite high.
    The highest number of policemen per one lakh population is reported in Andaman & Nicobar Islands (1,064) followed by Mizoram (996) and Manipur (877) while Bihar recorded the worst ratio (65) followed by Dadra & Nagar Haveli (89), West Bengal (92) and UP (94) against 137 at the national level.
    Delhi, incidentally, has a relatively good ratio (448) compared to other UTs.