New Delhi: India's anti-terror organization, National Investigation Agency (NIA), is all set to have its branches all across India by 2024 as the agency is currently on a massive recruitment drive to fill up its vacancies.
With the increasing tasks of this premier investigation agency, three branches have recently been set up at Imphal, Chennai and Ranchi with 141 posts.
"Six more branches are in the pipeline...we will have NIA branches in all states in India by 2024," said a senior official in NIA to ETV Bharat.
With these three new branches, NIA has 12 branches all across India at present. The nine other branches are at Jammu, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kolkata, Guwahati, Raipur, Hyderabad, Kochi and Mumbai.
The agency has also started a massive recruitment drive to fill up vacant posts.
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As per government statistics, as many as 427 posts are lying vacant which is 33.43 per cent of the sanctioned strength of 1277.
A senior official in the Home Ministry told this correspondent that the officers of the State police who have the experience of working in anti-terrorist squads (ATS) and Special Task Force (STF) have been found to be useful for NIA.
"The home ministry has written to chief secretaries of all the States requesting them to nominate police personnel with experience of working in ATS/STD. Their responses are being monitored," the official said.
Another official in NIA said that the shortfall in manpower is posing a challenge for the agency following the fact that its area of operations and investigation has been extended.
The jurisdiction of NIA, formed in 2008, has been extended following NIA (Amendment) Act 2019. The Act gives NIA the power to investigate scheduled offences committed outside India including terror attacks targeting Indians and Indian interests abroad.
The NIA also has the power to investigate other scheduled offences such as human trafficking, circulation of fake currency, manufacture and sale of prohibited arms, and cyber-terrorism.
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NIA's concurrent jurisdiction include probe terror attacks across India, bomb blasts, hijacking of aircraft and ships, attacks on nuclear installation.
Ironically, the shortfall in filling up of posts is, to some extent, attributed to the officials of CAPFs not being able to apply due to internal regulations of quota etc.
According to the government statistics, NIA has 10 sanctioned positions of deputy inspector general out of which 6 have been filed up remain 4 as vacant.
Similarly, against a total of 28 sanctioned posts of Superintendent of Police, NIA has 21 SPs at present keeping 7 posts vacant.
Against a total 23 positions of additional superintendent of police, NIA has 6 such officials at present with 17 positions remaining vacant.
There are wide vacancies for the position of deputy superintendent of police, inspector, sub-inspector, assistant sub-inspector, head constable, constable section officer, assistant, accountant, stenographers among others.
Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai has informed in the Parliament recently that as many as 64 cases of terror funding have been revealed by NIA in last three years.
