Current Scenario> Problems in Police Force> Police inefficiency> Hiring of police personnel

To ensure an efficient and modern police force it is crucial to have sufficient number of and well trained personnel. Currently in India, one police officer serves 700-750 citizens, compared to 242 in Australia or 382 in South Africa.

Table 1: Police - Population ratio

                                                                                          Data Source: South Africa Police Service Home page

The high figures in India can be explained by a large number of unfilled vacancies in the police forces, this applies to all levels and all over the country. This is not a new phenomenon. Already in the year of 1980 the National Police Commission (NPC) addressed the issue of the understaffed Indian police force in their fourth report. It was established that one police officer was handling 122 cases per year. The NAC wrote:

                     "The  enormous burden of investigational workload that falls on the available

                      investigating officers is too heavy to be borne with any reasonable efficiency.

                     There is urgent need for increasing the cadre of Investigating Officers."

It has also been stated that an investigating officer in Hyderabad today has a case work load of approximately 250-300 cases a year which is double compared to the national equivalent in 1980.

Table 2 a: Vacancies in Andhra Pradesh police force

                                                                                                                     Data source: Crime in Andhra Pradesh 2004

Table 2 b: Vacancies in the ranks

                                                                                                                      Data source: Crime in Andhra Pradesh 2004

It is further stated that a desired number of cases per investigating officer per year would be 50 to 60 cases to ensure efficient and fair investigations. However the Malimath Committee stretch it to a maximum of 10 cases per investigating officer per year. To enable this aim, for e.g. in Hyderabad the case load on each investigating officer must decrease by 96 percent. To ensure the aim it is either required to employ more investigative officers into the police force, which would demand increased financial resources or to empower already existing personnel in the force to investigate minor criminal offences. The investigative powers lies with ASI and above ranked officers, in Andhra Pradesh this would mean that only 12% of the states police force is currently  empowered to investigate a criminal case, whereas 88% is not. Therefore one suggestion to increase the number of investigators would be to empower the 88% to solve minor criminal cases and consequently decrease the number of pending investigations.