Ranchi: Jharkhand has the poorest strength of civil police in the country with one policeman for a population of 458.39 people while several other smaller states and Union territories like Sikkim, Manipur, Nagaland and Andaman Nicobar have one policeman for every 100 people. The dismal strength of the constabulary does not impact VIP security in the state.
According to the data released by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) for the status of the police department in the country in the year 2020, Jharkhand is facing the challenge of acute manpower shortage in the department. As against a sanctioned strength of 82,277 personnel, the department is functioning with a strength of only 64,938 personnel. All wings of the department, including District Armed Reserve Police, State Armed Police and State IRB are facing the manpower crunch and a few of them are operating at almost half the strength. There were no regular recruitments in the 2019-20 financial year.
As against a sanctioned strength of 2,520 positions in the intelligence department, the actual strength is only 1,683 personnel while in the CID, out of a sanctioned strength of 581, there are only 447 personnel. ADG CID Anil Paltta has recently written a letter to the headquarters requesting posting of at least 40 inspectors from the batch recruited in 2018.
Despite the manpower crunch, there has been no dearth of policemen on VIP duty during 2019-20. The BPR&D, which released its annual report on January 1, 2021, has listed the figures till January 1, 2020. In 2019, there were 1,351 persons, including ministers, MPs, MLAs, judges and bureaucrats and a few private persons identified as VIPs and entitled for personal security. Though the sanctioned posts of police personnel for security duty was only 742, the state home department facilitated the deployment of 1,891 police personnel for VIP duty.
Realising the mismatch of available police strength and the number of personnel engaged on VIP duty, state director general of police M V Rao on April 1, ordered the withdrawal of bodyguards from private persons. The action was taken to mobilize policemen in Covid duty back then. The department, however, remained tightlipped if the order could be enforced. Rao did not respond to repeated phone calls while police spokesperson Saket Kumar Singh said he cannot make a comment immediately.