Two shots at IPS glory for policemen

Young police officers in central and state forces aspiring to join the Indian Police Service will be allowed to take two shots at the limited competitive examination, the home ministry has decided.

Young police officers in central and state forces aspiring to join the Indian Police Service will be allowed to take two shots at the limited competitive examination, the home ministry has decided.

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Home Minister P. Chidambaram has cleared the proposal to recruit IPS officers through limited examinations for police officers recruited as deputy superintendent of police in states and assistant commandants in five central police organisations.

Police officers should have put in at least five years of continuous and actual service to appear for the examination and should not be older than 35 years as of August 1.

The Kamal Kumar Committee that drew up a recruitment plan for the IPS had generously recommended an age limit of 45 years but the home ministry rejected the proposal on grounds that it needed to keep the age profile low.

At the examination, they may have to answer two objective-type papers (one on mental ability/aptitude and the other on policing) besides a subjective paper on policing-related issues and a personality test.

A government official said the essay-type paper was aimed at evaluating the ability of the officers concerned at comprehension and ability to write reports also. The Union Public Service Commission, however, would work out the details of the examination.

“We are holding consultations with UPSC that will hold the examination,” a home ministry official said.

The ministry wants the question papers to be set in English and Hindi.

The candidates will have the option to answer the essay-type paper in any of the eighth schedule languages.

The home ministry intends to annually recruit between 70 and 80 officers through this mode to fill 490 posts over the next seven years.

This would be in addition to the 150 officers recruited through the Civil Services Examination besides the promotion quota of states.

The central police organisations to be covered under the home ministry scheme are the Central Reserve Police Force, Border Security Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Central Industrial Security Force and the Sashastra Seema Bal.

Once recruited to the IPS, they would be put through a three to six month training course to be decided by an expert group.

Their seniority would be calculated based on the existing formula: one year for every three years of completed service.

In the batch-wise seniority list, these IPS officers would be placed between the directly-recruited IPS officers and those appointed on promotion from the states. Like the rest, they would be kept on probation for a year.