SI recruitment task back with Odisha Police after 27 years

BHUBANESWAR: All eyes are now on the Odisha Police, which is set to conduct the recruitment of subinspectors (SIs) after 27 years. The Odisha Staff Selection Commission (OSSC) had taken over the task of recruiting the SIs from the Odisha Police in 1994 following alleged corruption and mismanagement by some recruiters in the police department.
The state government has constituted a new recruitment board in Odisha Police and given the mantle of the appointment of SIs back to the police headquarters owing to the inordinate delay made by the OSSC in holding the exam for the last several years.
Wary of the acute shortage of SIs in the police stations coupled with the delay in the OSSC’s recruitment drive, director general of police Abhay recently urged the government to allow the Odisha Police to conduct the recruitment again. Following the government’s grant of permission, the newly constituted police recruitment board invited applications to appoint 477 SIs on June 12. For the first time in Odisha after Tamil Nadu, persons belongings to the transgender community can apply for the SI job.
“Our priority would be to ensure the timely recruitment of the SIs in a transparent manner. For the first time we are introducing technology in the appointment process. The applicants would be asked to write their papers through our computer-based recruitment examination (CBRE). Viva voce has been done away with. The SIs would be selected following written and physical tests in a professional manner,” the police recruitment board’s chairman Yeshwant Jethwa told . A DIG-ranked officer and another SP-ranked officer are the two members of the recruitment board.
It must be noted that the OSSC had last recruited only 134 SIs in the Odisha Police in 2020. This was done five years after the examination of the posts was conducted in 2015. The subinspectors have been undergoing training at the Biju Patnaik State Police Academy here. Officials said the OSSC had not been able to complete the recruitment process in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. No advertisement was issued for the posts in 2020 in view of the Covid-19 pandemic and restrictions on new appointments by the government, sources said.
The police said they would ensure that the examinations for the SI posts are held at regular intervals.