First ever major exercise to check drain on the exchequer
Cops were being used for domestic purposes, upkeep of properties
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Feb 7: In a first of its kind major exercise aimed at checking unnecessary burden on exchequer and mis-utilization of services of its personnel, Jammu and Kashmir Police has withdrawn about 850 Personal Security Officers (PSOs) and 160 vehicles from the politicians, retired and serving bureaucrats and uncategorized persons, which were deployed on extremely unjustifiable grounds.
Highly placed sources in the State Home Department told EXCELSIOR that the issue of deployment of large number of PSOs and police vehicles with the politicians, serving and retired bureaucrats, retired members of judiciary and uncategorized persons came up for discussion during numerous meetings between the top brass of Union Ministry of Home Affairs, State Home Department and Jammu and Kashmir Police about six months back.
Union Ministry of Home Affairs, which provides huge financial assistance to the Jammu and Kashmir Police under Security Related Expenditure (SRE) head, was interested in ascertaining whether funds were strictly utilized for the intended objectives, sources said.
“On the insistence of the MHA an exercise was set into motion to ascertain whether deployment of PSOs and police vehicles was made strictly as per the categorization and threat perceptions”, sources said.
During this process it came to the fore that in large number of cases rules were not strictly adhered to and huge number of PSOs and vehicles were deployed with politicians, serving and retired bureaucrats, retired members of judiciary and uncategorized persons without any justifiable ground, they informed.
Accordingly, it was felt imperative to withdraw such PSOs and police vehicles and ensure their better utilization elsewhere. “Jammu and Kashmir Police has withdrawn about 850 PSOs and 160 vehicles thereby putting an end to the big drain on the exchequer”, sources further informed.
Giving further details, sources said that in numerous cases much more PSOs were deployed than the actual entitlement of the persons as per their categorization from security point of view while as in many cases police vehicles were not being put to use but the Petrol Oil Lubricants (POL) was being obtained and then used in the personal vehicles.
In a number of cases it came to the fore that PSOs more than the justified entitlement were obtained by exerting political pressure with the sole objective of utilizing their services for domestic purposes, sources said, adding “it has also been noticed that PSOs obtained in excess were being used for upkeep of the properties by the politicians and bureaucrats thereby mis-utilizing the services of the police personnel”.
“A number of persons were utilizing services of drivers of the police vehicles for running their private cars just for the sake of status symbol”, they further said, adding “in this way huge funds given by the Ministry of Home Affairs under Security Related Expenditure were being mis-utilized”.
It has also been found that despite being given obsolete police vehicles certain politicians never asked for their replacement as actually they were not interested in operating such vehicles but only in the POL and utilizing services of drivers for the comfort of their family members.
“Had such an exercise been carried out in the past drain on the exchequer could have been avoided long time back”, sources said, adding “on the basis of the picture which has emerged during this long drawn exercise it has now been decided that in future PSOs and police vehicles will be deployed with the politicians, bureaucrats and other persons strictly as per their categorization from the security point of view”.
It is pertinent to mention here that a high-level committee carries out exercise vis-a-vis categorization of the eligible persons in view of the threat perception and accordingly PSOs and police vehicles are deployed.
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