Allocate more funds for security, PC tells states

Setting the tone for the chief ministers’ conference on internal security this weekend, Home Minister P. Chidambaram has urged state governments to allocate more funds for policing and the security establishment.

Setting the tone for the chief ministers’ conference on internal security this weekend, Home Minister P. Chidambaram has urged state governments to allocate more funds for policing and the security establishment.

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The minister told a consultative panel of parliamentarians that the annual central aid of Rs 1,000 crore to the states for modernising their police force was largely an incentive.

Home Ministry officials said state police forces needed nearly Rs 50,000 crore to make any significant impact in terms of infrastructure.

“The first duty of the government is to provide security to its people without which no development is possible,” he said adding that law and order and police being a state subject it is the primary responsibility of states to strengthen the police forces.

“The scheme only provides a helping hand to the state to build better police stations and provide modern weapons and communication systems to their forces,” Chidambaram said referring to the centrally sponsored Scheme of Modernisation of Police Forces.

Chidambaram called upon the states to give high priority to strengthening of their police forces in budget allocation.