New Delhi: More than 900 posts of IPS officers are lying vacant in the country, the highest being in Uttar Pradesh where 129 posts of senior police officers are yet to be filled.
There is a shortage of 906 IPS officers as on January 1, 2015 out of the total sanctioned strength of 4,754 posts, according to data compiled by the Home Ministry.
A total of 3,848 IPS officers are currently in position besides 145 probationers of the 2014 batch of IPS.
Besides the 129 vacancies in Uttar Pradesh, which has a total sanctioned strength of 517 IPS officers, as many as 98 posts are lying vacant in West Bengal which has a strength of 347 officers.
Odisha, which has a sanctioned strength of 188 IPS police officers, has 79 vacancies, followed by Maharashtra which has 62 vacancies of IPS officers out of 302 posts and Karnataka which has 59 vacancies out of the total sanctioned strength of 205 posts.
The Union Territory cadre, which has total sanctioned strength of 295 IPS officers, have 53 vacancies.
In order to mitigate the shortage of IPS officers, the government has introduced 'Limited Competitive Examination' as another mode of recruitment to IPS officers.
Officers of the rank of Deputy SPs of State Police Services, Assistant Commandants of Central Para-military Forces and Captains and Majors of Defence Forces fulfilling
certain eligibility criteria are eligible for appearing in the aforesaid examination.
However, a large number of court cases have been received in the Home Ministry, Union Public Service Commission, Department of Personnel and Training and Ministry of Defence challenging various aspects of the scheme of this mode of recruitment. At present, the issue is sub-judice.
As per the data compiled by the Bureau of Police Research and Development, the total police-population ratio in India as on January 1, 2014 is 139.76 policemen per lakh population.
