Facing acute shortage of IPS cadres, the Home Ministry has dispatched 16 paramilitary officers on probation to Naxal-affected states to work as additional superintendents of police.
The second-in-command and deputy commandant rank officers have been drawn from CRPF, BSF, CISF, ITBP and SSB and sent to Maoist-hit Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar.
"The officers have been sent on deputation when the states told the Home Ministry that they don't have enough IPS officers to be posted as ASP in many districts," a senior officer said.
All the 16 officers have put in more than 10 years of service in their respective organisations and have handled sensitive assignments and worked in hostile environments, including in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast.
The officers had undergone a brief special training on jungle warfare before heading for the designated states and places of postings.
"The officers will be fully under the command, control and disposal of the respective state governments and work as the ASPs of that state," the officer said.
The dispatching of the paramilitary officers to the states also bears significance in view of the fact that the Centre has already deployed around 60,000 central paramilitary personnel in all Naxal-affected states and these officers would help them coordinate at the grass-root level.
There are currently 196 vacancies of IPS officers across the country, while government has estimated that it will need an additional 450 officers to tackle threats from terrorists, left wing extremists as well as criminal syndicates.
The shortfall of 196 officers was mainly created during 1999-2002 when the induction of IPS officers per year dropped to 36 against the annual average of 85.
Recently, the government accepted the Home Ministry's proposal to increase the annual intake of IPS officers through Civil Services Examination from 130 to 150.
The Home Ministry is also mulling the option of holding a "limited" competitive examination exclusively to recruit IPS officers -- a route that was taken immediately after Independence to fill huge vacancies that had accumulated through the War years and because of the departure of British officers to the UK and Muslim officers to Pakistan.
The Maoists are currently running their writ in approximately 40,000 sq km areas covering 20 states. In 2009, due to Maoist violence, 591 civilians and 317 security personnel lost their lives. A total of 217 extremists were also killed during the year.
The Naxals also destroyed 38 railway properties, 53 telephone towers, 20 panchayat buildings, 47 school buildings and 121 forest buildings last year.
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