KARACHI, Feb 12: The government decided on Tuesday to rationalize the rules for recruitment in police and fixed a minimum height of five feet and five inches for recruitment of male constables and five feet for lady constables.

A meeting in the Governor’s House made several other changes to the rules for recruitment in police.

Now a candidate for recruitment will have to complete one-mile race in nine minutes. The number of chinups have also been reduced from four to two.

Only 337 candidates could finally qualify for selection in Karachi police at the recent selection tests. So only 24 per cent vacancies could be filled up, and the selected candidates constituted two per cent of the total number of applicants.

In Thatta, this percentage stood at only 0.6 per cent. The selection process in other districts is still incomplete.

Speaking at the meeting, Sindh Governor Mohammedmian Soomro stressed the need to maintain transparency in recruitment in police.

The IG Sindh, Syed Kamal Shah, briefed the meeting on the recent process of recruitment in police in the light of statistics.

The meeting was informed that a big problem being faced in filling vacant posts was because of age-old recruitment laws and standards.

Mr Soomro said relaxation could be given in such standards which could be improved to match the set standards in the course of training.

The meeting decided to update the 67-year-old laws.

It was decided that recruitment of constables would be in accordance with the laws, and in areas where selection had been done, reselection opportunity would be given under the new laws.

The governor directed that those who had been selected should be sent to training as soon as possible.

The meeting decided to increase the number of vacancies to be filled from 4,129 to 4,799.

While reviewing the results of the selection tests conducted so far, the meeting was informed that in Karachi 16,440 applications had been received out of which 2,991 candidates qualified in physical test which was 15 per cent of the total number of applicants.

In Thatta, out of 2,599 candidates only 7.13 per cent qualified in physical test, and in Badin 9 per cent of 1,398 candidates could qualify.

In Karachi there are 1,414 vacancies of police constables: 674 in the former district Central, 329 in South, 148 in West, 219 in East and 44 in Malir.

The Crime Branch has 90 vacancies of constables, Traffic Police 953, CID 10, Special Branch 13, CPO 14, SRP 417, T and T Branch 68, Training centre 212, TTI 7 and PQR 23.

The meeting was informed that a fully transparent procedure had been adopted for police recruitment and merit, ability and qualification were being ensured from the preliminary to the final selection. In this regard a central selection committee had been constituted in which the Town police officer of every Town was also included.

In this respect the Nazims, Naib Nazims, area notables and journalists are also associated as observers.

The central committee is headed by DIG Mohammed Yamin Khan, and editors and journalists of major newspapers have been given representation on it.—APP