Security personnel in India’s conflict zones will finally get their due.
The government has decided to give a generous dose of allowances to lakhs of central police personnel who guard India’s treacherous borders, go after naxalites and insurgents in central and Northeast India and fight terrorists like the ones that took hostages in Jammu on Wednesday.
“We have received in-principle approval to the proposal from the Union Cabinet,” a senior home ministry official told HT on Friday.
The Cabinet has instructed the ministries of home and finance to work out the details of the allowances. Personnel of the rank of commandants and below would be entitled to the allowances.
Home Minister Shivraj Patil is understood to have raised the demand at the cabinet when the 6th Pay Commission report was cleared, on the ground that security personnel deserved a better deal from the government.
Patil’s move was rooted in his conviction that central police personnel deployed as the first line of defence on the borders or fighting naxals in dense forests lead as risky and difficult a life as army personnel.