Tamil Nadu police tops in country in overall performance, says report

They have scored 6.49 out of 10 among 18 large and mid-sized States. States like Uttarakhand, Punjab and Maharashtra secured the subsequent places with scores of 5.88, 5.61 and 5.52.

Police personnel from every State were ranked after studying various factors such as modernisation of police force, representation of women, reservation to ensure diversity, the budget allocated to the department, filling up the vacanciesamong others.

In women representation and filling up of vacancies, the State has scored four out of five and secured third place after Chhatisgarh and Gujarat. Also, the percentage of vacancies in the officers’ rank from SC and ST category stood at 39 and 24. Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana and West Bengal were among the States which had given reservation for Muslims under the Other Backward Classes category.

The report, however, also estimated that it would take another 43 years for it to reach the 33 per cent representation of women in the police force if it goes in the current pace. It also said Maharashtra would achieve the representation in just 14 years, while Bihar will follow it in 18 years and Madhya Pradesh would take around 294 years.

Tamil Nadu was also ranked first place when it comes to diversity factor, representation OBCs, SCs and STs in the force, prisons, judiciary and legal aid, which the survey calls the four pillars of justice delivery. The State has also secured third place after Maharashtra and Kerala in the overall composite ranking.

Among large and mid-sized States, in rural police station coverage, the best performing was Kerala (79 sq. km per rural police station), Bihar (125 sq. km) and Tamil Nadu (155 sq. km). The worst among all States and UTs was Jammu and Kashmir (1,842 sq. km), followed by Meghalaya (852 sq. km), Himachal Pradesh (791 sq. km), Mizoram (759 sq. km) and Rajasthan (719 sq. km).