Updated: Sun, 21 Dec 2025 23:55 (IST) Delhi Police is facing a severe shortage of personnel due to which the work is affected. Of the sanctioned posts, 9,248 are vacant, especially ACP posts. Population … read more Delhi Police Headquarters. (File Photo) Rakesh Kumar Singh, New Delhi. Considered to be the most professional in the country, Delhi Police has been facing a severe shortage of personnel for years, adversely affecting the day-to-day functioning of Delhi Police. The number of sanctioned posts in Delhi Police, which is decades old, is 92,044, which includes staff from Police Commissioner to Constable rank, against which 9,248 posts are currently vacant in Delhi Police. This means around 10 percent of positions are vacant. Remove advertisement Just read the news According to senior officials of Delhi Police currently the population of Delhi has crossed two crores, in the light of which more posts need to be sanctioned afresh, but no one is paying attention to this. Apparently, due to severe shortage of personnel, Delhi Police is unable to provide better law and order to the residents of the capital. The crime graph in the capital increases year after year, along with it the burden of cases on the investigating officers also increases. Employees have to work for 12 to 18 hours, which makes it difficult for them to take time off. Doing double duty often has a bad effect on their health, they face the problem of irritability, which is considered a reason to commit suicide. External Affairs Minister Nityanand Rai expressed concern by presenting this figure of severe shortage of personnel in the Delhi Police in the Rajya Sabha last week. He said that maximum 36 percent posts of ACP are lying vacant. According to the old sanctioned figures, 346 posts of ACP are sanctioned, out of which 125 posts are lying vacant. On this, the police officer says that the Ministry of Interior itself has set a time limit for the ACP. 50 percent of DANIPS cadre will be made ACPs and 50 percent inspectors will be promoted and made ACPs. Inspectors are promoted every year to become ACPs but the recruitment of DANIPS cadre is not done as per the accepted criteria. More ACPs are retired every year than the number of ACPs made through promotion every year, as a result sufficient number of ACPs are not created. There is a shortage of ACP even in specialized and important units like Special Cell, Crime Branch, Cyber Cell, Economic Offenses Branch. An ACP has many responsibilities. Because of this, they are unable to supervise in a better way. The police officer says that about 15 years ago, Delhi Police decided to bifurcate law and order and investigation on the lines of Mumbai. In this connection, a DCP rank officer was sent to Mumbai and a survey was first conducted on the policing there. After that, about two to three times in Delhi, the then police commissioner also implemented it as a pilot project in some police stations of some districts. Half of the employees of those police stations were entrusted with the responsibility of investigating the cases and the other half were employed to maintain law and order in the area. But this experiment could not be successful because there is shortage of staff in every police station. Every day in the capital, when there is some VIP arrangement or law and order problem on some issue, most of the employees of police stations and districts are deployed to maintain law and order in the area. Therefore, this experiment has not been successful in the capital until now. The police officer says that the number of employees in each police station of the capital should be 150-150, but very few police stations have deployed 100 or 115 policemen. Same is the condition of cyber police stations. Four years ago, one cyber cell police station each was opened in all 15 districts. The number of employees in those police stations is put at 106-106, but a few cyber cell police stations have 50 to 60 employees. There was talk of deputing four inspectors in each cyber cell police station, but in very few police stations even two inspectors are deployed. The police officer says that according to the rapid increase in the population of Delhi, many police commissioners have built many new police stations in the district and opened cyber cell police stations in the past few years, but no additional posts have been sanctioned for them by the home ministry. Because of this, there is a problem with better policing. – 15 out of 54 sanctioned posts of Additional DCP are vacant – 13 are vacant out of 60 sanctioned posts of DCP and Additional Police Commissioner – 108 are vacant out of 1,453 sanctioned posts of Inspector – 1,039 are vacant out of 8,087 posts of 5087 are vacant out of 23,724 sanctioned posts of constable There are 4,591 vacancies out of 50,946 posts.
