The West Bengal government has announced plans to recruit 4,000 Kolkata Police personnel by December, while a separate notification for 9,000 police posts is expected in November, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said at an appointment ceremony in Kolkata on Monday.
The announcement came at Netaji Indoor Stadium, where the state government handed over appointment letters to newly recruited police constables. The Statesman reported that appointment letters were issued to 11,593 constables, including 3,379 women. However, the gender-wise figures cited in the report do not add up to the stated total, and the remaining figure was reported as 10,236 men.
Adhikari said the Police Recruitment Board would issue the November notification for 9,000 personnel. He also announced that 650 Group C clerical posts would be filled through the West Bengal Public Service Commission. The recruitment plans come as the state government seeks to expand the permanent police workforce and address vacancies across government departments.
The chief minister also handed over 3,500 body cameras and 12 pink R T Mobiles for the functioning of Quick Response Teams. The equipment is intended to support frontline policing and improve the response capacity of teams deployed for public safety duties. The announcement did not specify the locations where the vehicles or body cameras would be deployed.
Adhikari said the state police force would surpass Uttar Pradesh in personnel strength within the next two years. He also addressed recruitment delays linked to legal disputes over the Other Backwards Classes list, saying the state government had worked out a legal route through the Supreme Court to resolve the pending issues and expedite appointments.
The recruitment announcement also brought the role of civic volunteers into focus. Adhikari said police stations should be staffed by properly trained constables rather than relying on civic volunteers to run their operations. He said the government was not hostile towards civic volunteers and noted that their salaries had already been increased by Rs 2,000. He promised that future recruitment would be conducted transparently and without irregularities.
Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Agarwal attributed the shortage of permanent posts in government departments to what he described as indiscriminate recruitment of contractual workers under the previous government. He said contractual employees faced uncertainty over their continued employment and lacked a long-term sense of commitment to their work.
The chief minister also referred to pending employee issues involving dearness allowance and the Seventh Pay Commission. He said the gap between the dearness allowance paid by the Centre and the state had earlier stood at 42 percentage points, of which 20 percentage points had been cleared by the current government. He said employees would soon reach a dearness allowance level of 38 per cent and promised to implement the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations after the final report was received.
The next immediate milestones are the expected Police Recruitment Board notification in November and the government’s stated target of completing recruitment for 4,000 Kolkata Police personnel by December.
