Chandigarh: In a major administrative move, the Punjab government has promoted eight IPS officers of the 1994 batch to the rank of Director General of Police (DGP). The officers were previously serving as Additional Director Generals of Police (ADGPs) and had been eligible for elevation since January 2024. The promotions make Punjab the state with the highest number of serving DGPs in India.
The promoted officers include:
- Dr Naresh Kumar
- Ram Singh
- S.S. Srivastava
- V. Neerja
- Amardeep Singh Rai
- Parveen Kumar Sinha
- B. Chandra Sekhar
- Anita Punj
Promotion Delayed for Over 18 Months
The promotion process had initially begun in November 2023, but was stalled due to objections from Chief Secretary K.A.P. Sinha (IAS:1992:PB). He raised concerns over the creation of additional DGP-level posts, citing saturation at the top level of the state police hierarchy, which already had 12 serving DGPs.
However, with Monday’s promotion orders, the total number of DGP-rank officers in Punjab has risen to 20 — a striking figure for a state with only 23 districts.
Disproportionate Top-Rank Structure Raises Eyebrows
Punjab now has the highest number of DGP-rank officers in the country, outpacing even much larger states in both population and administrative size. According to the IPS gradation list published on the Punjab Police website, the following officers were already serving as DGPs before this round of promotions:
- Sanjiv Kalra (IPS:1989:PB)
- Parag Jain (IPS:1989:PB) – on central deputation as RAW chief
- SS Chauhan, Harpreet Singh Sidhu, Gaurav Yadav, Kuldip Singh (All IPS:1992:PB)
Gurpreet Kaur Deo, Varinder Kumar, Ishwar Singh, Jitendra Kumar Jain, Shashi Prabha Dwivedi, Arpit Shukla (All IPS:1993:PB)
Harpreet Singh Sidhu is currently posted with the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) as ADG, while Gaurav Yadav is serving as the officiating DGP of Punjab.
Rules vs Reality: How the Numbers Stack Up
Officially, Punjab has only two sanctioned DGP-level posts, as per the Government of India’s IPS cadre strength. However, the IPS Cadre Rules allow state governments to temporarily create additional posts at the DGP level for up to two years, to address functional or transitional needs.
As per the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) guidelines:
- Officers become eligible for promotion to Inspector General (IG) after 18 years
- For ADGP, after 25 years
- And for DGP, after 30 years of service
All the newly promoted officers from the 1994 batch have completed more than 30 years of service and thus fulfilled the promotion eligibility.
Implications and Concerns
While the promotions fulfill long-pending administrative obligations and are welcomed by the officers, they raise fresh questions about bureaucratic bloating, resource allocation, and effective deployment in a police force with limited field responsibilities at the DGP level.
Experts warn that having such a high concentration of top-ranking officers in a relatively small state may result in hierarchical redundancy, unless strategic reforms are introduced to optimize their roles.
