Faced with recent controversies in the recruitment of constables in police and paramilitary, the government has proposed to make the process transparent by introducing radio-frequency tags and digital calculation of physical parameters. The new proposal came after Home Minister P Chidambaram called for a thorough review of the recruitment policy, following controversy in last year's CRPF recruitment.

The Bureau of Police Research and Development has suggested several steps to make the recruitment completely transparent, including digital measurement of physical standards of police aspirants, use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags during physical endurance test, abolition of interviews, biometric examination of aspirants and use of Optical Mark Recognition answer sheets to reduce chances of cheating during tests.

"The Union Home Ministry has approved and also asked all states to implement the recommendations made by us to bring in transparency in the recruitment process of the police constables across the country," Ish Kumar, Director - National Police Mission of BPRD, said.

Till now, the height and chest of all police aspirants were being measured manually. Following the recommendations, these will be done digitally. "Aspirants chest and height will be measured with the help of a digital device. This will be done to address to alleged complains of incorrect measurement conducted to disqualify a candidate," Kumar said.

The government has also advised use of radio frequency RFID tags during the physical endurance test. As part of the test, candidates are made to run a certain distance.

"Since the number of runners are huge and not each can be monitored to check for any cheating, we have suggested use of (RFID) chips on these contestants so that it will track each location travelled by them in the process of running," he said.

Kumar also said that there will be provision of OMR answer sheets for reducing chances of cheating or being cheated in the test. "This answer sheet cannot be tampered," he said adding, "candidates appearing for the written test to the post of constable will be given a biometric identification card to reduce chances of proxy test takers."

He added, "We have advised for abolition of interviews so that we do not loose on the best candidate. The ministry has promised financial help to all states for procurement of the equipments for implementing the recommendations."