Recruitment of police constables and Sub-Inspectors in States saw a decline of over 21% in 2019 compared to the previous year, according to a report compiled by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D).
Recruitment in Central armed police forces (CAPF), that is directly under the control of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), saw a decrease of over 51% in 2019 compared to 2018, the report shows.
Overall, States recruited 1,18,262 (1,05,353 constables and 12,909 Sub-Inspectors) in the year compared to 1,50,690 such recruitments the previous year.
Of the 14,541 CAPF constables and Assistant Commandants recruited in 2019, as many as 9,339 constables belonged to the Railway Protection Force (RPF) alone, that is directly controlled by the Railway Ministry. The number of constables inducted in forces such as the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), the Border Security Force (BSF), the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the Indo Tibetan Border Police Force (ITBP), all under the administrative and operational control of the MHA stood at 2,867. The total sanctioned strength of CAPFs is 11,09,511 and the actual strength is 9,82,391. The CRPF assists the State governments in maintenance of law and order and performs various internal security duties. The BSF, ITBP, Assam Rifles and SSB are border guarding forces, but they also provide need-based assistance to the civil administration for maintenance of law and order and internal security.
The overall vacancy in State police comes to 5,31,737 against the total sanctioned strength of 26,23,225 at the national level. The number of total women in State police stood at 2,15,504, a 16.05% increase compared to the year 2018.
Highest in U.P.
According to the report, the highest number of constables were recruited in Uttar Pradesh — 47,897, followed by 14,933 in Telangana, 9,159 in Gujarat, 6,785 in West Bengal and 6,647 in Haryana.
In Jammu and Kashmir, downgraded to a Union Territory on August 5, 2019 after Article 370 of the Constitution that provided special status to the erstwhile State was read down by Parliament, only 836 constables were recruited.
The BPR&D, the police think tank of the MHA, has been publishing “data on police organisations” annually since the year 1986.
