Crucial meeting for induction of 32 Jammu and Kashmir Police Services (JKPS) officers into IPS to be conducted by the Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) is scheduled by the end of this month in Srinagar as all major hurdles for the inductions have been cleared by the Jammu and Kashmir administration as well as the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
Official sources told the Excelsior that all queries by the MHA and the UPSC have been replied by Home Department of the UT Government and Police Headquarters and now the UPSC will convene the meeting for induction in Srinagar.
The meeting will be attended by representatives of UPSC, MHA, Chief Secretary Dr Arun Kumar Mehta, Home Secretary RK Goyal, Director General of Police Dilbag Singh and Principal Secretary ranked officer of the UT Government.
The UPSC has sounded Jammu and Kashmir administration that the meeting will be held by the end of this month.
Induction of 32 JKPS officers into IPS will take place exactly after two years as it was on July 30, 2021 that last inductions took place when13 serving and 14 retired JKPS officers made it to the IPS.
Process for induction of 32 JKPS officers into IPS was taken up by the Police Headquarters followed by the Home Department immediately after 13 serving and 14 retired JKPS officers were inducted into IPS by the UPSC in July 2021.
“The process is quite lengthy. All legal hurdles, seniority issues etc had to be cleared. Then there were series of objections raised first by the UT Home Department and then Ministry of Home Affairs and UPSC,” the sources said but added that all queries have been responded satisfactorily and now decks have been cleared for inductions.
They said 32 vacancies of IPS have been separated between 2015-2020 with highest eight posts allocated for the year 2015 followed by seven to year 2018, five each to 2017 and 2019, four to the year 2016 and three to 2020.
This will be for the first time when 32 JKPS officers will get IPS in one go if everything goes well in the UPSC meeting, they added.
After identification of 32 vacancies for inductions, the Police Headquarters had prepared detailed document including year-wise vacancies and the officers figuring in seniority.
As there were clear 32 vacancies available for induction of JKPS officers into IPS, the proposal may not meet any hurdle, sources said.
However, they added, the Annual Performance Reports, inquiries, if any, and some other issues are taken into consideration before formal inductions into the IPS are approved by the UPSC during the meeting.
As per the sources, seniority of 32 JKPS officers, who are eligible for inductions has been drafted.
In July last year, the UPSC had approved induction of 27 JKPS officers into IPS-13 serving and 14 retired. However, later 14 posts of IPS extended to retired officers were declared as vacant and added to the vacancies. This took total number of vacancies of JKPS officers’ induction into IPS to 32, benefitting a lot of police officers.
“However, the JKPS officers who will be inducted into the IPS, will get AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram Union Territories) cadre as the Union Home Ministry has already merged erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir cadre into AGMUT as J&K was made a Union Territory on August 5, 2019,” sources said.
The Government now proposed to make induction of JKPS officers into IPS a regular feature every year so that the JKPS officers are timely inducted into the IPS like other States and Union Territories and not after 10 years as was the case earlier.
Besides benefiting the JKPS officers, their induction into IPS will also help the Jammu and Kashmir Government to overcome shortage of IPS officers in the Union Territory especially in the rank of DIGs.
“The shortage will definitely be overcome with induction of JKPS officers into IPS,” sources said.(Daily Excelsior)
