Indian Homeland Security News and Updates

Provide modern weapons to states: auditor general to Indian Home Ministry

Source: hindu.com

New Delhi, May 14: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has asked the Home Ministry to provide modern sophisticated weapons to the State police force to enable them to deal with terrorists.

"State police force should be provided with modern sophisticated weapons and given proper training to handle those so as to enable them to deal with challenges posed by terrorist and other extremist forces," CAG said in a report Audit Evaluation of Modernisation of Police Force in India.

Annual action plans should be prepared after thorough study of the deficits in the infrastructure requirement of the state police force so as to avoid any deviation from the approved annual action plan.

"Timeliness in submission and approval of the annual action plans should be ensured for effective and efficient implementation of the scheme. State level empowered committee should monitor the implementation at a regular interval preferably every month," it said.

Police telecommunication network should be strengthened to facilitate better communication for police intelligence and crime investigation.Training needs should be properly assessed and regular training should be imparted for upgradation of professional skills of the police force. Training institutions should be strengthened with necessary infrastructure.

The CAG also recommended that the utilisation of allocated funds under modernisation of police force scheme should be ensured through proper monitoring by the state level empowerment committee.

In order to improve the mobility of police force and the response time to reach crime site, police stations should be provided with adequate number of vehicles as per Bureau of Police Research and Development norms.

The pace of construction of the buildings for police stations and police quarters should be speeded up. Availability of sites should be ensured before transfer of funds to the construction agencies.

The forensic science laboratories and the finger print bureau should be strengthened with necessary equipment and trained personnel. Optimum utilisation of the forensic science laboratory and finger print bureau should be ensured to avoid delays in analysis of samples/crime investigation cases.

In order to derive full benefit of the scheme, vacant posts of police personnel should be filled up in a time frame as per the BPRD norms.