Complacency my biggest worry: PC tells CMs

Disappointed that states had not utilised even half the training slots kept for police officers at specialised training camps run by the army and para-military forces, home minister P Chidambaram told chief ministers on Tuesday his biggest worry was complacency and asked them to take bold and hard decisions.

Disappointed that states had not utilised even half the training slots kept for police officers at specialised training camps run by the army and para-military forces, home minister P Chidambaram told chief ministers on Tuesday his biggest worry was complacency and asked them to take bold and hard decisions.

HT Image

Chidambaram said only 47% of the training slots kept for the states had been utilised. This means 53% of the seats went abegging, he said, pointing 17 states had not yet sent proposals to spend crores of rupees allocated by the Thirteenth Finance Commission for police modernisation.

The home minister — who also asked the states to move forward on police reforms —told the CMs the Centre had taken measures to raise the capacity of the security establishment. But this did not mean the government didn’t have things to be worried about.
“I worry about security at our airports, I worry about coastal security, I worry about the slow pace of procurement, I worry about the quality of training imparted to security personnel,” he said.
But his biggest worry was “that we might slide into complacency and begin to think that ‘God is in heaven, and all is well with the world’. Terror attacks at Pune and Varanasi “should jolt us out of complacency”.

Northeast wants ban on prepaid cards
Three northeast states have asked the Centre to ban prepaid mobile phones in the region due to their rampant misuse by insurgent groups, Chidambaram said.