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Here is a reality check on how safe is aam aadmi on Odisha’s roads. When over 45,000 new criminals (first-time offenders) were on the prowl during the year 2020, there were a mere around 26,200 civil policemen to guard against.
It’s no wonder then to see criminals feeling emboldened and the State registering around 315 cases of crimes per one lakh population in 2020.
As per the data with State police, last year police have arrested over 45,000 criminals under various IPC sections. And as per police records, they had been arrested for the first time. In the police lexicon, such arrestees are termed as first-time offenders.
Against the backdrop, the MoS (Home) Dibyashankar Mishra today informed the house today that Odisha police is grappling with a vacancy of over 11.4k.
Why the yawning vacancies are seen as hurting policing in the State is, as per sources, the serial offenders (in police lexicon offender arrested more than once) are only a handful - below five per cent of the total arrests made last year. The data on the arrest of serial offenders indicate how policing has a salient effect on crime control and vice versa.
Police and Public
The data tabled by MoS Mishra throws many bizarre statistics that drop a telling comment on the state of policing in Odisha. Consider the numbers that nail the deterioration.
- As per the data, the sanctioned strength of the police force, including civil and armed, in Odisha stands at 67,761. But the actual strength in 2020 was 56,305. The vacancies stood at 11,456.
- A thorough glance at the data placed shows that civil cops, who are responsible for maintaining law and order, stood at over 26,000.
- In the year 2019, as per BPRD data, the sanctioned strength was 66,161 and the actual strength was 58,455. The vacancies stood at 7,706.
The 2020 numbers vis-a-vis 2019 reveal a sharp rise in vacancies at various levels in the State police, which marks a deterioration of the manpower the State police have.
As a consequence,
- For around 800 aam aadmi, there is only one cop to guard.
- The state has only 17 civil policemen to cover every 100 square km area.
- 0.17 civil cops per square km in Odisha
Odisha Police Lacks Teeth And Tail
As per the facts placed in the State Assembly today, Odisha police neither have enough teeth to bite nor a long tail to tighten the noose around the anti-socials.
Crime detection and analysis play the clincher role in preventing galloping crimes. For that, proper staffing between senior supervisory, immediate supervisory and field personnel need to be maintained. And in the police lexicon, that proper proportion is termed as teeth to tail ratio.
A calculation puts Odisha's teeth to tail ratio at 1:13.5:83.6, which means for every one senior supervisory staff (above DSP level) there are only 13.5 inspectors/ASIs and only 83.6 constables.
Odisha Vs Neighbours
The states like Bihar, Assam, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have higher constables per inspector and above DSP level staff. The constable proportion in the states ranges over 123 per 1 above DSP level officer.
Odisha fares poorer because the State police are saddling with a massive 3489 vacancies at the constable level in 2020. The vacancy at the DSP level has been 92. The high level of vacancy at the DSP level get reflected in vacancies at the SP level in the State. The vacancies at the SP level stood at 15.
Outcome On Law And Order
- When around ten girls/women in every one lakh female population are being kidnapped in the State, the average nationally is only eight.
- Similarly, when over 22 females per lakh women population are subjected to the outrage of modesty in Odisha, it’s only around 11 nationally.
- And the rate of murder and attempt to murder in Odisha is over 3.5 per cent and 5.2 per cent respectively, which is also a notch higher than the national average.
- In every 24 hours, on average, the State records over ten IPC crimes.
