ACR Backlog Hits Police Promotions Retirements, Transfers Delay Report Uploads

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Over 10,000 Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) of police personnel across various units are stuck and yet to be uploaded on the department’s website, officials said on Monday. The delay has also hit preparations for the state government’s Promotion Policy-2025, which relies heavily on ACR data for processing promotions.

In June, the Police Headquarters (PHQ) instructed all units to submit pending ACRs within a week, even if incomplete. Despite this, thousands of reports are still awaited.

Officials attribute the delay to various reasons. Some supervisory officers responsible for writing ACRs have retired, some have been transferred, while others were promoted. According to rules, only the officer who directly supervised a subordinate can write the ACR. Retired officers are permitted to submit ACRs only within one month of retirement.

Thousands of such officers have already passed that deadline. Others, who have been transferred to different districts, are reportedly unwilling to return and complete the reports, citing official workload or detachment from previous postings.

The PHQ is developing a centralised website to host complete records of every police personnel. However, this new issue has significantly slowed down the process.

Special Director General (SDG) Adarsh Katiyar said that all units were instructed to submit ACRs to enable promotions under the newly approved Promotion Policy-2025."Despite repeated correspondence, many units have not responded. We've directed them to submit the ACRs up to 2023–24 in any condition within a week," said Katiyar.

Until the pending reports are submitted, they cannot be uploaded, leaving both the digital records and promotion processes in limbo.