Haryana Police splurge on ‘Raahgiri’, but clueless on funds

Mukesh Tandon

Tribune News Service

Panipat, February 17

The Haryana Police organised 16 “Raahgiri” events in Panipat in a year and recently the district even received the best Raahgiri award from Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar at Hisar. Surprisingly, however, the department does not know who spent the money on organising these costly events held to promote harmony among residents.

The Director General of Police records say Rs 6.4 lakh was released for Raahgiri events in Panipat, but the district police claim they received Rs 2.3 lakh. Interestingly, even this amount is lying unspent with them.

Over one lakh persons participated in the event, but the police department does not know the aim and objective of the Raahgiri event, as revealed under the Right to Information Act by Satish Kumar Vats, Deputy Superintendent of Police and State Public Information Officer (SPIO) at the SP office. PP Kapoor, an RTI activist of Samalkha, had sought information from the SP office about the Raahgiri events organised from May 2018 to April 2019 on April 23 last year.

Kapoor said the reply given by the SPIO was “shocking”.

The event was being held for the last two years regularly and all senior officers of the administration were present in the programme, but the cops said the public was organising the event on its own.

Kapoor said the events used generators, mikes, dhol and even utilised services of DJs. The administration said it had not spent a penny on such fanfare, then who was bearing the expenditure, he asked.

Sumedha Kataria, former DC of Panipat, said that during her tenure no money was received by the DC office for Raahgiri event and the people of the city were organising the events on their own. The objective of Raahgiri event was to provide stress-free atmosphere to residents and promote harmony and togetherness, Kataria maintained.

Event for promoting harmony

‘Raahgiri’ is an initiative for residents organised by the district administrations on the direction of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. Held almost once a month in each district, it aims to promote togetherness and social harmony. The event includes activities like tug-of-war, skipping, badminton, archery, volleyball, cycling, kite flying, yoga, painting, rangoli-making, dance and horse riding.