Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Oct 8: The Government today said that there is no proposal to disband Village Defence Committees (VDCs), operating in parts of the Jammu region to counter the militants.
In reply to a Question posed by MLA Engineer Rashid, the Government said: “Given the security situation in the State and the role played by the VDCs, there is no proposal to disband them.”
The reply said the volunteers of VDCs do not enjoy any special privilege or immunity and action in accordance with relevant provisions of law is taken against them in case they are found indulging in unlawful activities.
Government said that FIRs were registered against 151 VDC members for committing different offences. Challan of majority of them have been produced in the court of law while some of them were convicted and a few others were acquitted. Investigation in some cases was also going on while one remained untraced.
“Against 5,000 sanctioned VDCs, 4,112 have been constituted. The number of Special Police Officer (SPOs) working with VDCs is 4574 while the number of members working with VDCs is 26,425”, the reply said.
“Leh and Kargil in Ladakh region have five and 10 VDCs respectively, says the reply. It may be mentioned here that the region is militancy free area.
The reply said: “No remuneration is being paid to volunteers working with VDCs on account of their voluntary nature of engagement. However, SPOs working with VDCs are being paid a monthly honorarium of Rs 3,000.”
The reply said that the selection of an area would be made after carefully taking into account the threat of militants, location of security forces in the vicinity and capacity and willingness of villagers to organise themselves against the militants.
The reply said that 151 VDC members were booked after they were found indulging in unlawful activities.
In reply to another Question posed by MLA Harshdev Singh, the Government said that working of VDCs is under constant review and all possible steps are being taken to improve their working and effectiveness.
The reply further said that there is no proposal to regularise the VDCs as their engagement is voluntary in nature. “No VDC has been disbanded so far. However, since 2010, 5768 SPOs have been disengaged on various grounds like absence from duty”, the reply said.
The reply said: “270 SPOs and 52 VDCs sacrificed their lives in the militancy related incidents. An amount of Rs 537 lakh has been sanctioned to the next of kins of 270 SPOs and Rs 49 lakh to the next of kinds of 49 SPOs.”
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