Centre mulls new proposal where IPS officers may have to shed weight to get promotion

New Delhi: Indian Police Service (IPS) officers with pot bellies may soon have to shed those extra kilos to earn promotions. [caption id=“attachment_3402994” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Image for representational purpose only. PTI[/caption] The Centre is considering a proposal to link promotion with the fitness of the officers concerned. The move comes after the home ministry recommended physical fitness of IPS officers as a mandatory measure before promoting them to various levels. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has finalised draft service rules to include this recommendation and has asked all states and union territories administrators to give their comments. “Promotion of IPS officers to various grades will be subject to the physical fitness as per the instructions as may be issued by Ministry of Home Affairs from time to time,” the draft rules say. Existing rules do not have any such provision for the promotion of the officers of Indian Police Service. They get promotions to various levels, scales and grades after completing required years of service. Such fitness-linked-promotion for the IPS officers, if comes into force, would be at par with Group ‘A’ officers of Central Armed Police Force, the recommendations said. The IPS officers will also have to possess expertise in three domains — areas of operations — like intelligence, economic offences, cyber crimes, VIP or industrial security, counter insurgency and anti-terrorism among others. “The Home Ministry has felt the need for domain expertise training programme for IPS officers. The ministry has proposed that an lPS officer should complete three domain expertise training programme of duration of at least one week before their promotion to DIG, IG and ADG,” the draft rules by the DoPT said. There are 20 domain assignments identified by the ministry. The rules are being drafted to ensure that IPS officers complete their probation in time. “The Ministry of Home Affairs have opined that many IPS officers do not complete their probation within the stipulated two years period, but they are given the benefit of seniority from the batch in which recruited. “The aforesaid Ministry has felt a need to curb the tendency of delay in completing the probation period in respect of IPS officers,” the DoPT proposal said, suggesting timeline for completion of the probation.