Condition of police forces in NE 'quite poor'

SHILLONG, June 12 ? Five years since the 100 per cent Centrally funded special scheme for modernisation of police forces in the North-eastern states was launched, the Union Home Ministry has made the admission that the condition of the police forces in the North East is ?quite poor?. It is an accepted fact that most of the militant outfits are better armed and equipped than the State police forces. The financial bankruptcy of the State governments in the region also hampered providing of modern arms and equipments to the police. The dismal situation led the Centre to formulate the special scheme with emphasis on supply of arms and ammunition, vehicles, communication equipment and other essential equipment in kind. Official sources here disclosed that the entire scheme has been approved for a sum of Rs 285 crore for five years from 1997-98 to 2001-2002. During 1997-98, vehicles and arms and ammunition worth Rs 35.63 crores were provided as assistance to the North-eastern states under the new scheme. The next three years witnessed expenditure of Rs 12.48 crore, Rs 50.90 crore and Rs 67.42 crore respectively. During 2001-2002, Rs 42.21 crore was released to the North-eastern states. The scheme of modernisation of police forces has been extended for one year upto 2002-2003 following requests from the NE states. The Centre has also formulated a scheme reimbursement of security-related expenditure under which expenditure on certain identified items are reimbursable. These include expenditure incurred by the State governments in the north-eastern region on purchase and transportation of new vehicles, bullet-proofing of new and existing vehicles, purchase of automatic/semi-automatic weapons along with ammunition. The scheme also covers purchase of bullet-proof jackets and other protective gear and procurement of latest communication equipment, both mobile and static, bomb detectors, explosive detectors, computers, etc. The sources informed that capital works on jails and detention centres, special training provided to police and prison staff for counter-insurgency purposes, expenditure on raising India Reserve Battalions, expenditure incurred for transporting arrested militants to jails, etc., are also reimbursable. The list of reimbursable items has been recently expanded to include 50 per cent of POL (petrol, oil and lubricants) and expenditure incurred on village guards and village defence committees. The SRE reimbursement facility has been extended to Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh since 2000-2001. Till date, the NE states have received a total of Rs 629.03 crore from 1997 to 2002 March.