MOHAMMAD JAMIL KHAN

The Police Headquarters is planning to propose promotion of 550 police officials to superintendents of police keeping them in the offices they are serving now.

The move will be made to address the frustration of a group of police cadre officials who cannot get promoted due to a lack of vacant posts, said sources at the PHQ.

Sources claimed that many police officials are dejected for not getting promotions and feel unenthused about the additional workload an election year brings in.

This sort of promotion, known as in-situ, is unusual in the bureaucracy.

A police cadre officer, who joins the service as an assistant superintendent of police (ASP), is supposed to be promoted to SP after 10 years in service. The SP post is the fifth in the hierarchy of BCS cadre service.

There are 550 officers who cannot be promoted due to unavailability of posts, according to the PHQ.

These officials are from the 28th, 29th, 30th, and 31st BCS batches. The 28th batch officers were appointed to the police force in 2010 while the those from the next three batches joined the service in the subsequent years. A lack of promotion opportunities is frustrating officials, said PHQ officials.

A good number of cadre officials will retire as additional SP if initiatives are not taken to create posts immediately, they said.

For this reason, the proposal for in-situ promotions has already been finalised, a high official at the PHQ told The Daily Star recently.

“It will be submitted to the [home] ministry soon through the Police Management-1 wing of the Police Headquarters,” he said requesting anonymity.

Md Monzur Rahman, assistant inspector general (media) at the PHQ, said they are working to create additional posts to ensure smooth promotions of the cadre officials.