5 lakh posts vacant in police forces

NEW DELHI: A whopping five lakh police posts of the sanctioned strength of 22.63 lakh are lying vacant across the country.

According to Home Ministry statistics, there are 22,63,222 sanctioned posts in police forces of all states in the country, of which 17,61,200 are occupied while 5,02,022 posts are lying vacant.

The highest 1.80 lakh posts are lying vacant in Uttar Pradesh where the sanctioned strength of police force is 3,64,200 personnel.

In West Bengal, which has a total strength of 1,11,176 sanctioned posts, around 35,000 posts are lying vacant.

There are 1,12,554 sanctioned posts in Bihar Police, of which around 30,300 are lying vacant.

In Karnataka, out of the sanctioned strength of 1,07,053 posts in its police force, around 25,500 are lying vacant.

In Gujarat, which has a sanctioned strength of 99,423 posts in its police force, around 17,200 are lying vacant.

Similarly, In Tamil Nadu, which has a sanctioned strength of 1,35,830 posts in its police force, around 16,700 are vacant.

Jharkhand has a sanctioned strength of 73,713 posts in its police force, of which 15,400 are lying vacant.

Chhattisgarh, which has a sanctioned strength of 68,099 posts, more than 8,500 posts are lying vacant.

Meanwhile, according to a report of the Bureau of Police Research and Development, there are 188 police stations in the country which have no vehicle, 402 police stations have no telephone connections, 134 police stations don't have wireless sets and 65 have neither a telephone nor a wireless set.

There are a total of 15,555 police stations in the country, of which 10,014 are in rural areas and the rest are in urban areas.

There are only 10.13 vehicles for 100 policemen at the national level with 1,75,358 vehicles in all available for law enforcement.

Insurgency-hit Manipur has the highest number of police stations with inadequate facilities in remote areas and in case of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, most police stations are located in Maoist-hit areas where arms, wireless sets and vehicles are often snatched by the Left-wing extremists.