Punjab makes highest reservation for SCs in state police

The border states of Punjab followed by Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal have made highest reservation for schedule caste (SCs) during the recruitment in State police. According to a report by Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), the total strength of police personnel belonging to SCa stood at 3,01,648, Scheduled Tribes (STs) at 2,42,343 and Other Backward Classes (OBC) stands at 5,19,622, for ranks from constable to deputy SP.

There are more than 20.91 lakh police forces in the country including civil police, district armed police and India Reserve Battallions (IRBn). For SCs, Punjab government has given a reservation of 25 percent followed by Himachal (22) and West Bengal (22). The highest reservation for STs was observed in the States of Nagaland (100 %) and Meghalaya (80%). Similarly, the OBCs enjoys reservation of upto 50% in Tamil Nadu and 43% in Sikkim, the report stated.

A total number of 19,467 including central ministers, MPs, MLAs, judges, bureaucrats were provided with police protection by 43,566 policemen for more than 6 month during the year 2019. The numbers however has come down as comparison to 21,300 VVIPs in 2018. Among them, more than 300 VVIPs were central protectees which include President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and Defence minister Rajnath Singh, besides others (see gfx).


On the contrary, police per lakh population during 2019 came down to 155.78 from 158.22 in 2018. The highest police personnel per lakh of population were recorded in Nagaland at 1300 (on actual strength) while Bihar at 76.20 and West Bengal at 110.53 were lowest among the large States. Further, the report stated that recruitment of police constables and Sub Inspectors in States saw a decline of nearly 21 percent in the year 2019 as compared to the previous year.

According to the data, the total sanctioned police forces in states and union territories is 26,23,225, while there are 20,91,488 police personnel actually in service. Therefore, 5,31,737 posts in police forces are lying vacant as on January 1, 2020. Out of the total of 16,955, sanctioned Police Stations, 9,705 Police Stations are located in rural areas, whereas 4,725 Police Stations are located in urban areas and the remaining 2,525 are the special purpose police stations. Among these police stations, 143 Police Stations do not have wireless or mobile communication while 257 of them were without vehicles.

Data on number of VVIPs given security cover:

West Bengal	3142
Punjab	2594
Bihar	2347
Haryana	1355
J&K	1194
Delhi	501

(Figures are of 2019)