How large a police force Haryana needs?
Gustakhi Maaf Haryana – Pawan Kumar Bansal
By our enlightened reader Dr. Ranbir Singh Phaugat
How Large a Police Force Does Haryana Need?
The Haryana government plans to recruit just over 5,500 constables. If the average annual salary and other expenses per constable amount to ₹6 lakh, this will cost the government treasury approximately ₹330 crore annually. Haryana has ten government universities, each with an average expenditure of ₹300 crore. Capital investment is separate. This suggests that the government is prepared to spend a substantial amount of money on what may be considered a non-essential expansion, instead of providing adequate funding to under-resourced universities.
Does Haryana really need 100,000 police personnel to maintain law and order? If an electronic surveillance system is properly installed and maintained, and the intelligence network is strengthened, there may be no need to recruit even a single new constable. In that case, only existing vacant posts should be filled, and the creation of new posts should be halted for the next ten years. Vacancies should be filled strictly on fitness criteria and on compassionate grounds for the dependents of police personnel who die untimely deaths.
The Haryana Police is already heavily dominated by IPS officers, meaning that more IPS officers than necessary have been deployed in the state. There appears to be no need for more than 100 IPS officers.
The creation of posts and determination of police force strength should not be based solely on a per-capita formula, but rather on the capability and efficiency of the existing force. Countries such as America, Germany, Japan, France, and Britain do not follow the same proportional model as India. Moreover, there are Central Police and Reserve Police Forces, the RAF, and a separate Industrial Security Force.
While police stations generally appear to have decent infrastructure, it is far from excellent. Police outposts are in very poor condition, often located in remote areas and lacking adequate public amenities. Patrol police and highway patrol units function only nominally. Traffic police are visible mainly during VIP movements.
Are politicians so powerful that their security requires thousands of personnel and the man-days of numerous IPS officers? It is surprising that no one has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on this issue.
An optimum police strength must be determined so that the state’s precious resources can be better invested in improving the overall quality of life.
khabre junction