Yoga exercises to de-stress the men in uniform at the Calcutta police training school. A Telegraph picture

Guess who’s complaining about employee attrition? No, not another BPO that is struggling to keep its flock together. The latest entrant into the where-have-all-our-people-gone club is Calcutta police.

More than 30 per cent of the sergeants and sub-inspectors recruited in 2004 have quit, leaving their bosses at Lalbazar puzzled.

“It is not as if people wouldn’t leave earlier, but that was mostly during the gruelling period of training prior to induction. This time, officers have resigned after being inducted into the force,” a senior officer said.

The joint commissioner of police (administration), Pradip Chattopadhyay, confirmed the exodus. “As many as 84 sergeants and sub-inspectors out of the 250 who joined in 2004 have left.”

The attrition rate was previously never more than three to four per cent.

Of the 25,000 men and women in the force, only 600 are sergeants. There are 2,000 sub-inspectors in the ranks, which police commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakraborti said was inadequate.

Different people cite different reasons for quitting. Anindya Bhattacharjee, a former traffic sergeant who resigned in 2006, said he was unable to come to terms with corruption in the force. “You can bear everything from the crazy duty hours and paltry salary to the bossing around if you are a man on a mission. But I was disillusioned after being transferred to the traffic department. I left within seven months of the transfer,” Bhattacharya, now a high court lawyer, said.

Sukanya Talukdar, a former sub-inspector at Hare Street police station, left because a more lucrative offer came along. “I was okay with everything except that I had to work on public holidays. In any case, we had all joined the force knowing that is how it would be.”

Talukdar, Monirul Islam, Soumanil Sarkar and Hardeep Singh Jagpal left after clearing the West Bengal Civil Service (WBCS) examination. Others like Nadeem Haider and Rajeeb Banerjee took up teaching after passing the School Service Commission (SSC) examination.

“Many of them are academically good and have age on their side. It seems that this trend of taking the WBCS and SSC examinations is here to stay. This is in keeping with what is happening across other sectors,” a senior IPS officer said.

A source said more sergeants and sub-inspectors were appearing for competitive examinations than earlier because of a change in the recruitment procedure.

“Earlier, personnel were recruited for these positions through an internal examination. Now, they are recruited through the Public Service Commission. They keep appearing for other competitive examinations after joining the force till they get a better offer.”