A total of 10,145 posts are vacant in the Border Security Force (BSF) till July 1 this year, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai informed the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
Out of the 10,145 vacant posts in the BSF, 387 are for Gazetted Officers (GOs) in Group 'A'; 1,816 are for Subordinate Officers (SOs) in Group 'B', and 7,942 are for Other Ranks (ORs) in Group 'C'.
Rai was responding to the questions of CPI MP Sandosh P and CPI (M) MP AA Rahim about the details of current vacancies in the border guarding force in the country, which is responsible for guarding 3323 km of the India-Pakistan border and 4096 km of the India-Bangladesh border.
The MoS further said a total of 7,372 new posts were created by the BSF in the last five years between 2020 and 2024.
Rai provided a year-by-year breakdown, indicating that 7,210 positions were created in 2024, 54 in the previous year, and 108 in 2021. There were no new positions created in 2020 and 2022.
The Minister further said 54,760 personnel have been recruited in the BSF in the last five years and that the creation of posts and cadre restructuring is an ongoing process based on the operational requirements of the force.
The strength of BSF as of July 1 this year is 2,55,663 against the sanctioned strength of 2,65,808, as per data shared by Rai.
The data mentions that out of the 2,55,663 posted strengths of the BSF, 5,145 are GOs, 36,528 are SOs and 2,13,990 are ORs.
He further stated that the government has made special provision for recruitment of ex-Agniveers for the post of Constable (General Duty) in BSF, as notified in the Recruitment Rules, General Duty Cadre (Non-Gazetted), dated March 6, 2023.
The Minister said that 10 per cent of the vacancies shall be reserved for ex-Agniveers in the BSF and the upper age limit shall be relaxable up to three years for the candidates of ex-Agniveers.
Further, the age relaxation of five years beyond the prescribed upper age limit will be given to the candidates of the first batch of the Agnipath Scheme, he said. Ex-Agniveers will also be exempted from Physical Efficiency Test (PET).
