Centre addresses shortage of police

With an increasing rate of crime and over 5.48 lakh vacancies in police forces countywide, the Centre has asked state governments to recruit personnel to fill posts within a year and conduct a review on sanctioned strength.

Earlier this month, Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami wrote to chief secretaries and director-general of police (DGPs) of the states and union territories after noting the urgent need to look at augmenting the forces.

The letter was sent against the backdrop of the Home Ministry’s engagement in addressing the need to increase the strength of police forces across the country.
As per the latest data on police organisations in India, the sanctioned strength of police in the country is 22.09 lakh. However, there are only 16.60 lakh police personnel.

As of January 1,2013, Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of vacancies at 2.01 lakh, followed by Gujarat (45,191), West Bengal (38,275), Haryana (22,440), Chhattisgarh (20,916), Tamil Nadu (20,670) and Karnataka (20,274). Before the bifurcation, Andhra Pradesh had 32,247 vacancies.