The Gujarat government, which had vowed to make its intelligence gathering robust in the aftermath of the Ahmedabad serial blasts last July, will now hire 44 intelligence officers on a five-year contract at a pay of Rs 4,500 each per month.
But their selection may be no mean task. Despite the paltry pay offered with no guarantee of regular employment after five years, more than 48,000 graduates have applied for the 44 posts (including 22 reserved for SCs). A total of 47,410 have been initially shortlisted for the task.
Such contractual hiring in the police is not new in Gujarat. Thousands of non-uniformed men hired on similar five-year contracts for just Rs 2,500 a month, called Lok Rakshaks, already provide services similar to that of regular constables in most other states, for the badly understaffed state police.
The decision to hire intelligence officers on contract was triggered by the total intelligence failure into the Ahmedabad blasts. Nineteen bombs ripped through the city, killing 59 people. The government put out newspaper advertisements in February this year inviting applications for the posts.
IGP Intelligence A K Sharma said: “We received a total of 48,516 application forms. Of this, only 47,410 were accepted, while the remaining 1,106 applications were rejected during preliminary scrutiny by our department.”
Sharma added that all these 47,410 eligible candidates will undergo a three-stage selection procedure, consisting of physical fitness examination, a written test and an interview. “A state home department-appointed selection board will conduct recruitments for these posts. The selection procedure is expected to begin by next month,” Sharma said.
Once selected by the board, these “hand-picked” men will be called Intelligence Officers (IOs), a post equivalent to the rank of a sub-inspector in the state police force. Some of these IOs may be considered for a regular job depending on their performance and requirement at end of the contract period.
Senior intelligence officers said these 44 new IOs may be deployed either in the state police intelligence headquarters at Gandhinagar or sent on field postings in one of the eight state IB regions at Rajkot, Surat, Junagadh, Bharuch, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Deesa and Vadodara. Their job will be mainly to collect information on security and law and order situation in the areas assigned to them.
| Source: indianexpress |
