Patna, Jan. 25: Seven newly recruited Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, who were allotted Bihar cadre, reported to the state police headquarters last week. These IPS officers on probation have already been allotted districts for their field training.
Additional director-general of police (headquarters) P.K. Thakur said the IPS officers on probation would first get acquainted with the functioning of the state police, social and cultural fabric of the state and then sent to the districts for field training.
Sources said three of the seven IPS officers of the 2009 batch have been allotted home cadre (Bihar). Two officers are from Uttar Pradesh (UP) and one each from Punjab and Haryana. The IPS officers allotted Bihar cadre are — Harpreet Kaur (Punjab), Pushkar Anand (Munger, Bihar), Saurabh Sah (Kahalgaon, Bhagalpur), Navin Chandra Jha (Saharsa, Bihar), Babu Ram (Haryana), Jayant Kant (Lucknow, UP) and Narendra Kumar (Mathura, UP).
While Kaur has been asked to remain in Patna, Anand has been directed to go to Muzaffarpur for field training. Sah would remain posted in Nalanda and Ram in Gaya respectively. Similarly, Kant has been asked to join Rohtas. Narendra Kumar would go to Purnea and Jha would report to Bhagalpur.
Sources said the probationary officers would remain at the headquarters till February 13. “They will leave for their respective districts on February 14,” a senior police officer said, adding that for the first time a good number of IPS officers have been allotted Bihar cadre.
With seven more IPS (probationer) officers joining opting Bihar cadre, the shortfall of direct recruited IPS officers in SP rank in the state would definitely reduce.
In 2008, four IPS officers of 2007 batch had joined Bihar. A year ago, six IPS officers each of 2005 and 2006 batches respectively were allotted Bihar cadre.
The scene was, however, quite different more than five years ago. While 30 directly recruited IPS officers opted for Bihar cadre after Nitish Kumar came to power in November 2005, only five officers joined Bihar between 2001 and 2004-05.
Bihar was allotted only one IPS officer each in 2001 (2000 batch), 2002 (2001 batch), 2003 (2002 batch) and 2005 (2004 batch) respectively. However, two IPS officers of 2003 batch were allotted Bihar cadre, who joined in December 2004.
In 2006, Bihar did not get any directly recruited IPS officer in spite of a shortfall of such officers in the state. The top brass of the state administration, however, blamed the previous government for the dearth of directly recruited IPS officers in the state.
Owing to pressure mounted on the Centre, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) increased the state quota of IPS officers during the present dispensation. The strength of the Bihar cadre IPS officers in different ranks has been raised to 231 from 190 of which 161 posts are to be filled with directly recruited IPS officers.
while the remaining 70 posts have to be filled up with the officers of the state police service.
The government opened a Pandora’s box even for the state service officers. Recently, the Union Public Service Commission cleared the names of 19 BPS officers for promotion to IPS cadre and sent the same to the MHA for issuing an official notification. There were still 13 vacancies, which are to be filled up with the officers of the state police service.
“The state police headquarters is trying to fill up all the vacant posts to be filled up with state service officers in 2011,” a senior officer said. Altogether 24 senior DSPs were promoted to additional SP rank last December.
