|
|
M’rashtra, WB ‘poor performers’ New Delhi, February 15 According to official documents, put together by the Home Ministry, Maharashtra and West Bengal have been labelled as “poor performing states” as they failed to use the funds sanctioned to them by the Centre for upgrading their police force and intelligence apparatus. Taking a view of the poor use of funds, the Centre said the state governments that failed to submit their utilisation certificates by December 2009 have been denied allotment and their “funds have been diverted to other responsive states.” The Finance Ministry, they were told, has prohibited the “parking of unutilised funds.” The performance of the states has been categorised as good, average and poor. The poor performing states like Maharashtra and West Bengal have not submitted their utilisation certificates (UCs) for amounts over Rs 5 crore. The states lagging behind have been asked to increase the pace of expenditure. It is a matter of concern that Maharashtra and West Bengal, which have witnessed high levels of violence over the past few years, are among the key states, which are unable to use the money being sanctioned to them for improving their police force. It was probably the state government’s poor performance on this front, which provoked Home Minister P. Chidambaram into ticking off Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan at last Sunday’s conference on internal security. While Chidambaram rejected Chavan’s demand for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for detection of armed insurgents, the Home Minister also snubbed Chavan when he said existing laws were insufficient to deal with outfits like the Senas.The Centre earmarked Rs 1,230 crore for current financial year for the scheme for modernisation of the state police forces (MPF), which is meant primarily to equip state governments to deal with emerging challenges to internal security like terrorism and naxal violence. The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) has been asked to undertake a full impact assessment of this scheme, reports submitted by the Comptroller and Accountant General (CAG) have pointed out that many state governments do not release their matching grants and though money available for this scheme is parked in various deposit accounts by state housing agencies. The poor performing states have outdated and obsolete weapons and even the extremist-prone police stations are often not supplied with modern weapons and even when it is supplied police personnel are not trained to use them. Their police communication network does not function efficiently, they do not have enough vehicles and their forensic laboratories lack proper infrastructure. Yet, all states have been seeking an extension of this scheme by five to 10 years and also pressing for more funds under it.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
