Huge shifting of police officers to special forces creating crunch

Deployment of cadre police officials to different task forces of the state without recruiting new ones has created an acute shortage of police personnel in Bihar. The strength of police personnel in the state has reduced to half of the sanctioned strength. According to a senior official in Bihar Police, the formation of different Special Task Forces (STFs) to handle special and high-profile cases have created a huge shortage of policemen on routine policing job.

"There are several officers in the state who are holding additional charges of up to three departments. New teams are being formed, but new hiring has not taken place. There are only 177 IPS officers in Bihar as against the sanctioned strength of 231," the officer said, adding that Bihar has 34,251 police vacancies against the total strength of 72,132. It's due to the shortage of officers that even promoted officers have not been allocated charges of their rank and are still holding their pre-promotion posts. ADG (special branch) Sunil Kumar, who was promoted to the rank of director general (DG) in January, is still holding the additional charge of ADG (headquarters). Amarendra Kumar Ambedkar, who was promoted to the rank of ADG, is still holding his pre-promotion post of IG (Training).

Similarly, Upendra Kumar Sinha, Satish Kumar and Gopal Prasad, who have been promoted from DIG to the rank of IG, are also serving their pre-promotion DIG posts.

The situation is similar also with officers of Superintendent of Police rank as they are still donning the hat of their pre-promotion posts. Officers of SP ranks such as Vikas Vaibhav, Rajesh Kumar and Anil Kumar Singh have been promoted to the rank of DIG, but their duties have not yet changed.

It's due to the shortage of officers that key posts of premier investigating units like vigilance investigation bureau and economic offence unit, budget-cum-appeal and welfare, have also been under additional charge.