5.3 lakh police posts lying vacant across India

New Delhi: Over 5.30 lakh posts of police personnel are lying vacant in the state police forces, a 21 per cent shortfall against the total sanctioned strength. This was noted by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Home Affairs in its report tabled in Parliament on Thursday.

The committee, headed by Congress leader Anand Sharma, noted that there were 5,31,737 vacancies as on January 1, 2020 against the sanctioned strength of 26,23,225 in the state police forces, which was almost 21 per cent shortfall.

Most of the vacancies are of constable rank.

"It is not a desirable figure given the crime and security scenario in the country. The committee is of the considered view that shortage of staff has a direct bearing on the efficiency of the police," the report said.

The panel said the workload of the existing staff increases forcing them to do work overtime, most of the time in stressful and trying circumstances.

This not only leads to increased stress level, leading police to vent out at times on common people but it also compromises the overall performance of police in the discharge of their duties.

The committee, therefore, recommended that the ministry may advise states and UTs to conduct police recruitment drives in a mission mode and remove the administrative bottlenecks for recruitment of police personnel at different ranks in a time-bound manner.

Interestingly, the panel noted that there were surplus officers at the top ranks of police, DGPs, special DGs and additional DGPs.

There were 135 officers in the rank of DGPs and special DGs in the country against the sanctioned 117 posts, and 364 officers in the rank of additional DGPs against sanctioned 310 posts.