Law & Order Higher is better

Police-to-Population Ratio

Number of civil + armed police personnel (actual in-position strength) per 100,000 population. India's UN-recommended ratio is 222 per lakh. Higher generally indicates better policing capacity.

Tamil Nadu's police per lakh is 172.0 per 100,000 per 100,000 (2022), per Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D), MHA.

Tamil Nadu, latest

172.0 per 100,000

2022

Last verified 2026-05-14

Change

+12.4%

2015 → 2022

Rank vs compared states

#2 of 5

TN vs MH, KA, GJ, UP · higher is better

Tamil Nadu's Police per lakh is 172.0 per 100,000 (2022), up +12.4% since 2015. It ranks #2 of 5 compared states (higher is better).

Source Official Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D), MHA Coverage 2015 – 2022 Sources & methodology ↓

About this indicator

This is the number of police personnel per hundred thousand people, a basic measure of policing capacity against the UN-cited reference of roughly 222. It captures sanctioned or actual strength on paper but not deployment, training, or how officers are distributed between law-and-order, VIP duty, and administrative roles. A higher ratio suggests more capacity per resident, yet effectiveness depends on how that strength is used, so read it as an input to policing rather than an outcome.

Police per lakh · 2015 – 2022

Tamil Nadu's Police per lakh rose from 153.0 per 100,000 (2015) to 172.0 per 100,000 (2022).

Source: Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D), MHA

Compare with Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh

1 MH Maharashtra 173.0 per 100,000 2022
2 TN Tamil Nadu 172.0 per 100,000 2022
3 GJ Gujarat 155.0 per 100,000 2022
4 UP Uttar Pradesh 151.0 per 100,000 2022
5 KA Karnataka 140.0 per 100,000 2022

Tamil Nadu highlighted. Each row shows that state's value and the year it is from. Compare like years with care.

Where this data comes from

The provenance of every value above and how to cite it.

Source provenance

All observations come from a single source.

2015 → 2022

Primary ↗

Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D), MHA

BPR&D Data on Police Organisations (DoPO)

40 observations across 5 states · Tier 1

Click any segment to open the source publication and verify the values yourself.

Methodology & notes

BPR&D Data on Police Organisations. Actual (in-position) civil + armed police strength as of January 1 each year, ÷ projected mid-year population × 100,000.