BHUBANESWAR: The wait for the new director general of police (DGP) of the state might get a tad longer. With the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) yet to set in motion the process of appointment and incumbent police chief DGP Sunil Bansal’s tenure ending on December 31, the state government may have to appoint an acting DGP.
“The state government has initiated the process. However, it is yet to receive the date from UPSC to hold a meeting and select the names of three probable candidates for the top post,” said sources. Initially, the UPSC had set December 21 as the date for the meeting of the committee but it was put off. A fresh date has reportedly not been announced. Even if the commission fixes a date before December 31, it would cut too fine.
This means the government will have to appoint an in-charge DGP to manage the day-to-day affairs till the full-time DGP is selected. As per the rules, the government can select any senior officer as an acting DGP until a regular appointment is made. The committee to appoint the DGP is headed by the UPSC chairman and has a union home secretary, state chief secretary and outgoing DGP and one of the chiefs of central armed police forces nominated by the Ministry of Home Affairs, who is not from the same state cadre, as members.
“As per UPSC, the outgoing DGP is one of the members of the committee and since Bansal is set to retire, he cannot be a part of the panel to select the names after December 31,” said a senior official.
In August 2019, 1986 batch officer BK Sharma was appointed in-charge DGP after regular DGP Dr Rajendra Prasad Sharma was selected as a member of Odisha Lokayukta. The same year, the government appointed senior IPS officer Satyajit Mohanty as in-charge DGP until 1986 batch officer Abhay took charge as regular DGP in December. During the selection of three names for DGP’s post in 2019, no IPS officer was part of the committee, said sources.