Many senior posts lying vacant in Assam Police; running short of over 2,250 vehicles

Guwahati: Assam Police is grappling with vacancies at various levels including ADGP, IG, DIG, SP, according to official documents.

The state police force is also struggling hard to maintain its pace as it is operating at little over 70 per cent of its vehicle requirement as per official assessment to run its operations efficiently, government records revealed.

The total sanctioned strength of Assam Police is 79,852, including 4,835 personnel of Assam Police Radio Organisation (APRO).

Out of this, a total of 12,485 posts, which is 15.64 per cent of the required manpower, are at present lying vacant at various levels, as per official documents of the Home Department.

Three posts of Additional Director General of Police are lying vacant against the sanctioned strength of six.

Three posts of Inspector General of Police are also lying vacant against 14 posts, while there are no DIG at nine places out of 15 sanctioned posts, it said.

The documents also revealed that eight posts of Superintendent of Police, Assistant IG, Commandant and Senior SP ranked officials are lying vacant out of the total sanctioned posts of 147 in Assam Police.

In the Additional SP rank, 68 posts out of 168 are non-occupied, while 146 positions of Deputy SP are lying vacant against the sanctioned strength of 483 across the state.

Besides these senior posts, there are vacancies at every level of Assam Police as per the data.

The official documents further revealed that there are requirements for 7,800 vehicles in Assam Police for its efficient functioning as per assessment by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D).

However, the force currently has a total of 5,543 vehicles in a mix of owned and rented ones, which is 71.06 per cent of its requirement.

Assam Police is still running short of 2,257 vehicles as per the BPR&D standards.

Out of the available vehicles, 1,413 are taken on rent and the remaining are government vehicles. Of these, 1,888 are government two-wheelers, the official papers showed.

For the rented vehicles, the Assam government is shelling out crores of rupees from its exchequer every year, the set of documents showed.

Since 2016, when the BJP government came to power for the first time in Assam, a total of Rs 412.79 crore have been paid for taking the vehicles on rent in the state.

In 2024 itself, Rs 53.8 crore of rent bill has been paid till now, the official data said.

The Assam Police has a total of 336 police stations and 295 outposts. Out of them, one police station and 15 outposts are inactive.

Of the total establishments, nine stations and 17 outposts are operating from rented accommodation at present, while it has permanent buildings for 326 stations and 263 outposts.