The Special Protection Unit (SPU) of the Maharashtra police will launch a recruitment drive to fill vacancies and handle the additional duties since a change in government. The special unit that guards VIPs is looking to hire nearly 450 new personnel later this month.

The SPU of Maharashtra Police has been under stress since July when the security of all legislators and parliamentarians affiliated with Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s camp was upgraded to ‘Y+’. Usually, legislators are given ‘X category’ security, however, due to the nature of circumstances during the restructuring of the government, the security of the ministers was upgraded.

While general security is provided by local police units, SPU personnel provide security to VIPs who have been categorised by a government panel under various levels such as the X, Y, Y+, Z and Z+ security.

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‘Y+’ security includes two Special Protection Officers (SPOs) during the day and three police constables standing guard at night while the X category denotes the presence of only one police personnel.

Indian Express reported that the total sanctioned strength of SPU is around 1,500, but it currently has around 1000 personnel. Also, over 400 personnel will be transferred to other units as their tenure with SPU will end, according to the official.

On the other hand, the sanctioned strength of the Maharashtra police is more than 2.20 lakh, and it currently has 1.80 lakh personnel. Due to COVID-19, annual hirings have not been carried out in the past three years, due to which vacancies have risen.

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(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)