Over 3,100 IAS, IPS posts lying vacant

The top two All India Services of Indian bureaucracy - IAS and IPS - face a shortage of over 3,100 officers across the country, making it difficult for many states to clear administrative work and post senior cops on the ground to face various internal security challenges.

While Indian Police Service (IPS) is short of 1,327 officers, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) faces shortage of 1,777 officers with maximum vacancy reported from Uttar Pradesh (216), followed by Bihar (128), Madhya Pradesh (118), Rajasthan (112) and Jharkhand (100).

Minister of state for personnel V Narayanasamy said in Lok Sabha on Wednesday that the Centre had received requests from some state governments for increasing the quota of IAS officers in view of their increased administrative, social and other obligations towards people.

The proposals of the state governments were being considered as per the provisions of IAS (Cadre) Rules, which mandate the Union government to re-examine the strength and composition of IAS officers in consultation with the state concerned at an interval of every five years.

In his written response to a Parliament question, Narayanasamy said the present strength of the IAS was 4,377 against the authorized strength of 6,154.

Other states which reported shortage of IAS officers include Andhra Pradesh (92), Karnataka (80), Odisha (78), Manipur-Tripura (70), Tamil Nadu (69), Punjab (60), Kerala (56), Maharashtra (55), Chhattisgarh (54), Gujarat (52) and Jammu and Kashmir (46).

Similarly in IPS, the states have a shortage of 1,327 officers. Union home secretary R K Singh had informed a parliamentary standing committee in April that the actual strength of IPS in the country was 3,393 against the sanctioned strength of 4,720.

Citing one of the reasons for this huge vacancy, Singh had told the panel that the government in the past had reduced the number of seats to about 40 or 30 a year. "For a huge country like ours, recruiting 30 IPS officers a year was not advisable... The number of districts has increased, challenges have increased... The requirements of IPS officers have increased," the home secretary said.