Gujarat police is firing on empty!

State has been asking for bullets for three years, says home minister

PTI | March 5, 2010



The Gujarat police has guns but no bullets to fire from it, Minister of State for Home Amit Shah said in the state assembly, while replying to a question pertaining to police modernisation.

"We have been asking for bullets for our police force for the last three years but we have got nothing," Shah said on Friday during a discussion on 'Modernisation of Police Fund (MPF)' raised by BJP MLA Nanu Vanani from Surat (North).

"The situation is such that we do not have enough bullets for our policemen to practise. We have gun but no bullets to fire from it," he added.

Gujarat is high on terror radar and it had witnessed serial blasts in July 2008, in which 57 people were killed.

The minister also lamented the fact that the union government has reduced allocation under MPF from Rs.119.53- crore in 2000-01 to Rs.49.33-crore in 2006-07.

"Gujarat has an international land and sea border with Pakistan and also has a 1,600 km-long coastline. Those states with long coastlines need modern equipments and scientific instruments to curb terrorism," Shah said adding even Rs 100- crore per year for police modernisation is not enough now.

"But despite our demands the Union government had decreased the MPF. We had also made representations at various levels in the Centre to allocate separate funds for mega-cities like Ahmedabad and Desert Area policing," he said.

Shah said Gujarat Chief Minister has been raising the issue at the CMs meeting with the Prime Minister on internal security since last three years.

Despite this, Gujarat's demand has not been taken into consideration, he lamented.

The minister said that in the last three years there has been significant increase in MPF from Rs 69.40-crore in 2007-08 to Rs 87.47-crore in 2009-10.

In reply to another question related to border security by BJP MLA Bharat Barot, Shah gave a written reply that a special battalion has been created for security of border areas and fight against terrorists.

Shah said that for coastal security a Marine police force has been created with a strength of 566 personnel.

Moreover, for security of border areas in Kutch and Jamnagar districts two new State Reserve Police (SRP) batallions of 1,200 personnel each have been created.

The state government has also created a Raksha Shakti University for training youth in the state in terms of internal security and police science.

The first academic session of the university would commence from June this year.

Comments

 

Other News

‘The Civil Servant and Super Cop: Modesty, Security and the State in Punjab’

Punjabi Centuries: Tracing Histories of Punjab Edited by Anshu Malhotra Orient BlackSwan, 404 pages, Rs. 2,150

What really happened in ‘The Scam That Shook a Nation’?

The Scam That Shook a Nation By Prakash Patra and Rasheed Kidwai HarperCollins, 276 pages, Rs 399 The 1970s were a

Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure released

The final ‘Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure’ by ‘India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure for Economic Transformation, Financial Inclusion and Development’ was released in New Delhi on Monday. The Task Force was led by the

How the Great War of Mahabharata was actually a world war

Mahabharata: A World War By Gaurang Damani Sanganak Prakashan, 317 pages, Rs 300 Gaurang Damani, a Mumbai-based el

Budget expectations, from job creation to tax reforms…

With the return of the NDA to power in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, all eyes are now on finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s full budget for the FY 2024-25. The interim budget presented in February was a typical vote-on-accounts, allowing the outgoing government to manage expenses in

How to transform rural landscapes, design 5G intelligent villages

Futuristic technologies such as 5G are already here. While urban users are reaping their benefits, these technologies also have a potential to transform rural areas. How to unleash that potential is the question. That was the focus of a workshop – “Transforming Rural Landscape:

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter