180 cops for a lakh people in India: report

Police forces in the country added 10,565 personnel to its work force in 2016 compared to the previous year, but vacancies continued to be on the rise, a latest government report showed.

The vacancies, especially in the constabulary that accounts for 67.16% vacant posts, have left the forces in a situation where there are only 180 personnel for a lakh population, when the standard set by the United Nations is way above at 220 per lakh population.

The ‘Data on Police Organisation’ released recently showed that there are 5.49 lakh vacancies as on January 1, 2016, in police forces across the country at a time when there were 22.80 lakh sanctioned positions.

There are 17.31 lakh personnel as against 17.21 lakh personnel as on January 2015 and 17.22 lakh on January 2014.

An analysis of yearly reports prepared by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) showed that there was an increase of 7,039 vacancies in 2015 and 2016.

Police personnel complain that they are working without a break for days and it is affecting their social life.

The rare weekly off

A study sponsored by the BPRD itself earlier highlighted the plight of police, which said, 75% of the police personnel claim they rarely manage to get a weekly off while inspectors acknowledge that their subordinates work more than 11 hours a day.

The report showed that Uttar Pradesh continues to have the highest number of vacancies, but has improved its record — it has 1,81,958 vacancies as against 1.99 lakh earlier. The situation in Karnataka has worsened as the vacancies have increased from 33,307 in 2015 to 39,276. The state ranks second compared to fourth in 2015.

West Bengal, which had 45,430 vacancies, has managed to bring it down to 33,630, while Bihar also has an impressive record — 29,479 vacancies as against 41,696 earlier.

Of the vacancies, the highest is in constabulary — 3.68 lakh posts of constables are vacant and it accounts for 67.16% of the total vacancies. Compared to 2015, the number of vacancies among constables have risen by 7,111.

The vacancies in the post of head constables is 1.05 lakh, while there are 26,007 posts vacant in the rank of assistant sub inspector, 37,681 in sub inspector and 6,870 among inspectors.