By IANS
New Delhi : There are around 142 police personnel guarding every 100,000 people in India – a ratio far less than some European countries, parliament was told Wednesday.
The police-population ratio in India is much lower than some of the European and other countries, Minister of State for Home Affairs Sri Prakash Jaiswal told the Rajya Sabha or the upper house of the Indian parliament.
“As per data compiled by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) the number of police personnel per 100,000 of population in India as on Jan 1, 2006 is 1:142.69 (142.69 police personnel for every 100,000 population),” Jaiswal told the house.
To a question on where India stood vis-à-vis other countries, the minister said that no such information was compiled by BPR&D.
Since the police and law and order are the subjects of state governments, the primary responsibility to decide on the composition of the police forces, as also modernizing and equipping them adequately, to face the challenges to internal security, lie with them.
However, the union government has been advising all the state governments to fill up the existing vacancies of police personnel and outsource some of the non-core police duties that will also save manpower and promote police-community partnership, the minister stated in a written reply.