Highlighting the large number of vacancies in paramilitary forces, a parliamentary committee has recommended that the forces should send details of vacancies immediately to hiring organisations and not wait for years and hold special recruitment drives in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Kashmir, and the northeastern and border states.
The committee recommended that some sort of reservation be given to transgender people as well. “Steps may be taken to recruit transgenders as well so that they can be integrated well with mainstream society in near future,” the parliamentary standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice said in its 131st report on August 3.
The committee noted that there were 83,127 vacancies across all ranks in the six central armed police forces and Assam Rifles. Most vacancies were in the Central Reserve Police Force (29,238), followed by Border Security Force (19,987). Assam Rifles and Sashastra Seema Bal had 1,666 and 8,273 vacancies, respectively.
The CRPF and BSF are the largest among the paramilitary forces. While CRPF has around 324,654 personnel and BSF around 265,277, Assam Rifles has 66,414 personnel and SSB has around 90,000 personnel.
The paramilitary forces ensure the country’s internal security, guard borders and manage law and order problems. Currently, personnel of all six forces are posted in Manipur, which has been roiled by ethnic clashes. At least 160 people have died in the violence since May 3. The forces are working under a unified interagency command to restore normalcy.
{{/usCountry}}The paramilitary forces ensure the country’s internal security, guard borders and manage law and order problems. Currently, personnel of all six forces are posted in Manipur, which has been roiled by ethnic clashes. At least 160 people have died in the violence since May 3. The forces are working under a unified interagency command to restore normalcy.
{{/usCountry}}The committee also noted that the representation of women in the six central armed police forces and Assam Rifles was only 3.76% as on September 2022, and recommended a slew of measures to get more women to join.
“All necessary steps should be taken by MHA (ministry of home affairs) to encourage women to join Forces to the maximum possible extent. A major constraint that prevents women from joining forces is the difficult terrains and conditions in which they might have to work. So, a policy may be explored for women officers being given soft postings and not subjecting them to extremely strenuous and difficult working conditions, unless required in extreme circumstances like war, armed rebellion, etc., and that too when there is absolute shortage of males who can be deployed by the Forces,” the panel’s report said.
The committee found that the staff selection commission(SSC), which holds recruitment drives for different ministries and departments of the central government, was itself short of staff. Of the 541 sanctioned strength, the commission had only 329.
“The Committee feels that unless SSC itself has complete staff, how can it expect to conduct its activities and functions with utmost efficiency and in a time bound manner. Hence, the Committee recommends that SSC needs to fill the vacant positions in its organization at the earliest in order to carry out the other recruitment processes smoothly,” the report said.