Police want 550 SP posts before polls

The Police Headquarters is planning to propose promotion of 550 police officials to superintendents of police keeping them in the offices they are serving now.   

The move will be made to address the frustration of a group of police cadre officials who cannot get promoted due to a lack of vacant posts, said sources at the PHQ.

Sources claimed that many police officials are dejected for not getting promotions and feel unenthused about the additional workload an election year brings in.   

This sort of promotion, known as in-situ, is unusual in the bureaucracy.

A police cadre officer, who joins the service as an assistant superintendent of police (ASP), is supposed to be promoted to SP after 10 years in service. The SP post is the fifth in the hierarchy of BCS cadre service.

There are 550 officers who cannot be promoted due to unavailability of posts, according to the PHQ.

These officials are from the 28th, 29th, 30th, and 31st BCS batches. The 28th batch officers were appointed to the police force in 2010 while the those from the next three batches joined the service in the subsequent years. A lack of promotion opportunities is frustrating officials, said PHQ officials.

A good number of cadre officials will retire as additional SP if initiatives are not taken to create posts immediately, they said.

For this reason, the proposal for in-situ promotions has already been finalised, a high official at the PHQ told The Daily Star recently.

"It will be submitted to the [home] ministry soon through the Police Management-1 wing of the Police Headquarters," he said requesting anonymity.

Md Monzur Rahman, assistant inspector general (media) at the PHQ, said they are working to create additional posts to ensure smooth promotions of the cadre officials.

Asked, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told The Daily Star that they would look into the matter.

NO REGULAR PROMOTIONS IN NEXT 5 YEARS

According to the PHQ database, 150 officers of the 28th BCS cadre batch are waiting to be promoted to SP from additional SP. So are 35 officials from the 29th BCS cadre batch, who joined the force in 2011.

But only 77 SP posts will be vacant by 2030 as officers from the ranks of SP to additional IGP are scheduled to go into pre-retirement leave (PRL) by that time.

During these seven years, 233 officers, include 81 additional deputy inspectors general (DIG), 57 DIGs, and 18 additional IGs will go into PRL.

An official goes into PRL after reaching the age of 59.

Meanwhile, around 182 police officers from the 30th BCS cadre batch, who joined the force in 2012, and 182 from the 31st BCS cadre batch, who joined the service the following year, are also waiting for promotions from additional SP to SP, shows the PHQ database.

A high official at the PHQ said, "In a regular process, it will take at least six years for promoting these officers from these two BCS cadre batches to higher posts."

An officer from the 28 BCS batch, said, "We have completed 13 years in service. Offices from the same BCS batch in all other cadres -- admin, tax, foreign, and customs -- have already been promoted. We are suffering from an inferiority complex for not being elevated to higher posts."

The PHQ proposal shows that the creation of 550 in-situ SP posts will cost the government an additional Tk 1.05 crore a year.

Currently, there are 3,124 first class BCS cadre officers in the police force. Of them, 1,222 are ASPs, 1,001 additional SPs, 593 SPs, 200 additional DIGs, 85 DIGs, 20 additional inspectors general (grade II), two additional inspectors general (grade-I) and an inspector general.

PHQ sources said that the proposal on creating new posts of 85 SPs, 39 additional DIGs, 12 DIGs, and four additional IGs is now pending approval by the home ministry.