E-Paper
UP cabinet okays separate vigilance police stations
These police stations will help maintain secrecy in action initiated against corrupt state government officials and also speed up investigation of such cases.
In a major move to eradicate corruption, the Uttar Pradesh cabinet on Tuesday approved the setting up of independent police stations of the state vigilance department at all its ten sectors/units across the state.
These police stations will help maintain secrecy in action initiated against corrupt state government officials and also speed up investigation of such cases.
“The proposal to set up vigilance police stations was cleared during the cabinet meeting presided over by chief minister Yogi Adityanath,” said minister for energy Srikant Sharma.
He said the police stations will be set up at Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Ayodhya, Gorakhpur, Jhansi, Meerut, Agra and Bareilly.
Principal secretary, Home, Arvind Kumar said there will be no additional expenditure for setting up the police stations as the existing manpower and infrastructure would be used. He said the vigilance department was set up on February 11, 1965 for eradication of corruption among state government officials and investigations of such allegations.
Kumar said it was necessary to register FIRs to initiate legal action against corrupt officials after trapping or arresting them red handed or after finding them guilty in preliminary probe.
“So far, the FIRs in such cases were registered at the civil police stations. However, this causes inconvenience in further proceedings. The setting up of independent police stations of vigilance department will help in maintaining secrecy cases while the process of FIR registration, investigation and evidence collection will be expedited,” he explained.
He said the state government will soon issue a notification after which these ten police stations will be made operational.
On October 31, 2018, the state government had also issued a notification to set up four police stations of the state police’s economic offence wing (EOW) at its sector headquarters in Lucknow, Kanpur, Meerut and Varanasi after the CM ordered stern action against corrupt officials during a review meeting held earlier in the day on July 31.
