India may take decades to achieve the target of having 33% women in police, if one goes by the snail pace at which forces are recruiting the fairer sex.
The country added only 12,040 women to its police forces in a year taking their total to 1.22 lakh as on January 1, 2016 in a force that has a sanctioned strength of 22.80 lakh. At present, there are 17.31 lakh personnel.
The ‘Data on Police Organisation 2016’ by Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD), which was released recently, showed that the proportion of women in comparison to actual strength is just 7.10%. When compared to 2015 report, there is an increase of 10.86% in women personnel in the force.
********************************************************************
Women in Police: 1,22,912
Maharashtra – 21249
Tamil Nadu – 14,224
Rajasthan – 7,692
Uttar Pradesh – 7,589
West Bengal – 6,768
Bihar – 6,710
********************************************************************
However, one would be surprised to know that police forces across the country added only 38,433 women in the past five years since 2011 even as government repeatedly gives its commitment to increase the women representation to 33%.
The 2016 report, like in the previous years had reiterated that the availability of adequate women in police is possibility to reduce the vulnerability of women becoming victims of crime.
“If there is an overall shortage of women police personnel then how can country meet the new challenges in form of increased crimes against women, emphasizing the need to bring women police to front line duties. It is essential that women are visible at the cutting edge level of public interface,” the report once again questioned.
Among the states, Tamil Nadu has the highest representation of women at 12.99% (14,280 out of 1,09,948) followed by Maharashtra 12.07% (21,249 out of 1,76,044). In numbers, Maharashtra has the highest number of policewomen in the country.
The largest state of Uttar Pradesh has just 7589 women police personnel in a 1.81 lakh-strong force, which is just 4.17 per cent. Karnataka has just 6.14% (4,354 out of 70,934) women in police forces.
The number of women officers in senior positions is also very low. While there are 484 officers in the rank of Director General, Special Director General and Additional Director General, only 29 are women. Of the 539 Inspectors General, only 38 are women while only 25 out of 385 Deputy Inspectors General are from the fairer sex.
(An edited version appeared in Deccan Herald on Feb 17, 2017)
searching for blue pencil 