Kerala police under stress as 35 IPS posts lie vacant

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A lack of officers in the middle and top rungs is hurting the state police’s functioning, including in its fight against COVID-19. According to the latest figures, 35 cadre posts are lying vacant in the police department which has an authorised cadre strength of 172 posts. That means one-fifth of the authorised IPS posts need to be filled.

The figures obtained from the Police Headquarters reveal that nine Inspector General (IG) posts, two Deputy Inspector General (DIG) posts and 24 Superintendent (SP) posts are lying vacant. These were to be filled by conferring senior officers with IPS. But due to various reasons, including red-tapism and administrative hurdles, the nomination and appointment of officers to the coveted posts have been stalled since 2017. Police officers were conferred with IPS last in 2016.

Sources told TNIE that the police department has sent the names of potential officers for conferment for the year 2017 and the lists for the subsequent two years are yet to be forwarded to the Central government.
Meanwhile, manpower crunch continues to affect the functioning of the department as senior officers have to juggle various responsibilities. State Police Chief Loknath Behera said officers are on their toes under the prevailing circumstances.

“Each IPS officer has two to three responsibilities, due to which they have to put in extra hours. The officers have the calibre to generate output, but being burdened with additional duties, the quality of work suffers. If there was enough manpower, the output would have been better,” Behera said.

He said the department had expected that a few vacancies would be filled this year by means of confirmation, but the Covid-19 scenario has dashed the hopes. “Now, we may have to wait till 2021 for the vacancies to be filled,” he said.

Sources with the Police Headquarters said even new officers were forced to handle several responsibilities, which put them under duress. “Some officers, who have just been promoted as SPs, have to juggle several duties. During a demanding time such as the COVID pandemic, officers have a crucial role to play. If orders from the top have to be successfully executed on the ground, we need good officers and they need to be in a good frame of mind,” said a senior officer.