Hyderabad: The women police population ratio in State police forces across the country continues to remain low and the overall shortage of women police personnel is posing challenges in the form of increased crimes against women, points out the ‘Data on Police Organisations’ brought out by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D). The organisation emphasises the need to bring women police to front line duties.
When it comes to infrastructure 362 police stations in the country still do not have vehicles while 278 police stations do not have a wireless set or mobile and there are some police stations that are not even connected to the police headquarters of their respective states!
According to the Data on Police Organisations published today by the BPR&D (as on January 1, 2018), the total number of policewomen (including Civil, District armed reserve and State armed police) is 1,69,550, an increase of 20.95 per cent over the figure of 1,40,184 in 2016, which is still very low. Maharashtra has the maximum number of policewomen— 27,167.
In the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), out of 28,061 women police personnel, the highest number — 8303 — work in the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). At all India level, the actual strength of policewomen in other wings like traffic is 3,264, Special Branch dealing with Intelligence gathering is 2,324, special police units (Insurgents, terrorists etc) is 447. There is one policewoman for 3,647 women in the population.
Officials of the Bureau of Police R&D acknowledge that the availability of adequate numbers of women in the force is essential for reducing the vulnerability of women becoming victims of crime. They say it is essential that women are visible at the cutting-edge level of public interface and that the existing women police population ratio is still very low and should be increased.
“There is a tendency to engage women police only in situations like security checks and other specialised duties relating to women. But unless they are assigned mainstream duties in police stations, there would not be adequate impact on the community. Overall, shortage of women police personnel is posing challenges in the form of increased crimes against women,” an official in the Bureau said.
Another worrying aspect is vacancies in the police department. Overall, there are 5,42,697 vacancies against the total sanctioned strength of 24,84,170 at the national level. With regard to the state armed police forces, the total number of vacancies stands at 1,29,451 as against the sanctioned strength of 6,00,985. When it comes to the district armed reserve, there are 45,530 vacancies as against 2,79,438 sanctioned strength. As for the civil police, there are 3,67,716 vacancies as against 16,03,757 sanctioned strength. There are 59,503 personnel actually deployed on traffic duties alone.
The sanctioned strength of State police forces has increased to Rs 24.84 lakh in 2017 over Rs 24.64 lakh in 2016 and the expenditure on them has increased to Rs. 10,8174.88 crores in 2017-18 when compared to Rs. 10,6821.16 crores in 2016-17.
On the national level, a total of Rs 1505.62 crores was spent on police training in 2017-18 over the total police expenditure of Rs. 10,8174.88 crore. Of this, the maximum (Rs. 140.33 crore) was spent on training by Delhi police. Expenditure on Police Training during 2009-10 to 2017-18 has shown mixed trend. It has increased from 2009-10 to 2014-15 but then declined in 2014-15 and 2015-16 and again increased in 2016-17 and 2017-18.
With regard to the CAPFs deployed for internal security duties, out of the total 1,769 number of companies, the maximum of 713 companies of CAPFs were deployed in Jammu and Kashmir followed by 262 companies in Chhattisgarh, which indicates a massive deployment of central police forces to fight terrorists and Maoists.
The data also sheds light on the reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs in the police force. The highest — 25 per cent — reservation for scheduled castes is in Punjab followed by 22 per cent each in Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal.
The highest, that is, 100 per cent reservation for STs is in Nagaland followed by 82 per cent in Meghalaya. When it comes to the OBCs, Tamil Nadu tops the list with 50 per cent reservation followed by 42 per cent in Sikkim.
