Women to comprise one-third of Delhi Police: Rajnath Singh

The Home Minister said there is shortage of personnel in state and central police forces, as well as in the IPS cadre

Women will constitute a third of the Delhi Police, Home Minister Rajnath Singh told Rajya Sabha Wednesday.

"We have decided to increase the number of women personnel in Delhi Police to one-third. Our effort is also to increase women personnel in state police and central police forces to one-third," he said during Question Hour.

The Police-population ratio in Delhi (as in January 2013) was 391.33 per one lakh persons against the sanctioned strength of 420.49.

The Home Minister said there is a shortage of personnel in state and central police forces as well as in other police organisations.

"There is shortage of manpower in state/central police and Indian Police Service (IPS) cadre," he said.

He said that as of January 2013, the sanctioned and actual strength of police personnel at all India level per one lakh population (police-population ratio) is 181.47 and 136.42 respectively.

Singh said state governments have been advised from time to time by the Home Ministry to fill up the vacancies in their police forces. While the IPS cadre is part of the central bureaucracy, law-and-order is a state subject under the Indian Constitution. 

He said that to fill up the vacancies of IPS officers, the batch size of IPS (direct recruitment) has been increased from 88 to 103 from Civil Services Examination (CSE), 2005 and further to 150 from CSE, 2009.

Government had also introduced third mode of recruitment to IPS through 'limited competitive examination' to recruit 80 candidates annually. However, due to court cases, recruitment is yet to be done through this mode of examination.

Singh also said the process of appointments to the IPS by promotion from State Police Service has been accelerated.