After directing all its energies to improve policing in mega cities all these years, the government has finally turned its attention to the rural police.
After directing all its energies to improve policing in mega cities all these years, the government has finally turned its attention to the rural police. That’s because nearly 57% of the country’s police stations that fall in the category of “rural” are so understaffed that they are collapsing under the strain of having to combat insurgency in addition to their law and order duties. Besides, the states do not have enough funds to provide them regular training sessions and keep them fit.
Realising the seriousness of the situation, the Union home ministry has approached the 13th Finance Commission for funds to help states recruit more policemen and run effective training programmes. The ministry decided to ask for funds after trying for years, and failing, to persuade the states to recruit more policemen. The states expressed their inability to do this because of lack of funds.
In a proposal sent to the Finance Commission, home secretary GK Pillai has said that the money will be needed to recruit 3.40 lakh policemen for rural police stations. The police-people ratio in rural areas is much low than the national average of 14.5:10,000 (14.5 policemen per 10,000 people).
The home ministry was compelled to ask the finance commission for money since the states cannot afford to recruit the requisite number of police personnel or organise regular training sessions to keep them in shape. Out of 14,000 police stations in the country, nearly 8,000 are designated rural stations. The home ministry wants to recruit 3.40 lakh policemen because it wants to improve the police-people ratio to 22:10,000.
The ministry has calculated that the annual salary bills of the 3.40 lakh new policemen will be Rs19,232 crore. “Looking at the extraordinary shortage of staff in rural police stations, it is worthwhile for the Finance Commission to consider augmenting the financial resources of states to strengthen rural policing,” Pillai said.
A survey by the ministry has shown that the numbers of police personnel receiving training has declined over the years, largely because they can’t afford to be away from duty for long enough to enhance their skills.
While 99,000 police personnel underwent training in 2004, the next year, that number dropped to 69,000. In 2006, it slid to 51,000. Given the staff shortage and the training infrastructure, the 16 lakh police personnel in the country would be lucky if they get one training session in 15 years, Pillai said.
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