Image used for representational purpose only.
BHUBANESWAR: Odisha has slipped in its ranking for policing and legal aid among 18 large and mid-sized states of the country. The state dropped to 10th position from 7th in 2019 in the India Justice Report 2022 which carried out a ranking among states having more than one crore population on police, judiciary, prisons and legal aid.
The state scored 5.16 out of 10 in the four parameters. It is behind Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh which have been placed at 9th, 7th and 5th positions respectively. The state was ranked 4th under the police pillar as compared to the third slot in 2020 and slipped two spots each in prisons and legal aid pillars to be placed at 11th and 10th position in comparison to 9th and 8th respectively in 2020.
The study paints a grim picture for justice being delayed due to vacancies in police officers’ level and judges in higher courts of the state. The vacancies in other categories of the delivery system also remains a cause of concern.
As per the latest IJR, there was a 28.4 per cent vacancy in police officers level till January 2022. The correctional staff vacancies in the state stood at 41.6 per cent till December 2021 and the vacancies for medical officers in prisons was 61.7 per cent during the same period.
Odisha stood 11th in IJR’s ranking intention, which is calculated by the number of women in a police force, women officers in a police force, vacancies in the rank of constables and officers, and the difference in spending by the state as a whole and for policing.
The state has only 10.5 per cent women staff in the police force as against the national average of 11.8 per cent. However, the women officers representation in the state police force is 12.9 per cent and it is better than the national average of 8 per cent.
Among the 25 states, the increase in police budget trails the growth in total budget in 12 states, prisons in 17 states and judiciary in 10 states. According to IJR-2022, the five-year average growth of the total Odisha budget is 8.6 per cent, while the budgetary allocations to police, prisons and judiciary is 7.8 per cent, 0.7 per cent and 9.3 per cent respectively.
The five-year average growth of the budgetary allocations to police, prisons and judiciary is - 0.8 per cent, -7.9 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively against the average growth of the total state budget during the period.
