Haryana Police suffer from shortage of manpower: CAG

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Sirsa, April 1

With the task of maintaining law and order in a state with the fifth highest crime rate in the country, Haryana Police suffers from a shortage of manpower at every level.

The shortcoming is not only at the level of IPS and HPS officers and operational staff level, but also in the Forensic Science Laboratory where samples of evidence collected throughout the state are tested.

Interestingly, while there is acute shortage of manpower in the field, personnel of various cadres have been posted in excess of the sanctioned strength in various offices.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, tabled in the Assembly suggests that as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figures, the police population ratio in the state was considerably low at 1:576 as against Punjab 1:365, Chandigarh 1:254, Delhi 1:251 and Jammu and Kashmir 1:154. It was further observed that as per the NCRB, the police- crime ratio in Haryana was as high as 1:2.50 as compared to Delhi 1: 1.49, Chandigarh 1: 1.24, Punjab 1: 1.10 and Jammu and Kashmir 1: 0.47.

The report says there has been a shortage of IPS officers between 7 and 23 per cent in the state from 2009 – 2014 while in the corresponding period last year there was a gap between 2 - 35 per cent of HPS officers as far as sanctioned strength was concerned.

At the operational level, excluding IPS and HPS officers, the shortage of manpower ranged between 21 per cent and 26 per cent between 2009 and 2014, the report said.

The DGP, while admitting the facts, stated in October 2014 that no recruitments in the ranks of sub-inspectors and inspectors were made between 2009 and 2014.

A proposal for direct recruitment of 67 inspectors was sent to the government in February 2012, but its approval was still awaited. While there is acute shortage of manpower in the field, staff posted in offices of the Haryana Police at various levels is much higher than the sanctioned strength.

The report said that the scrutiny of records of the DGP office showed that in spite of overall shortage of staff, police personnel of different cadres ranging from 84 to 400 were posted in excess of the sanctioned strength, which further increased the shortage of manpower.