Vijay Gupta
On February 4, this year the neighboring State of Punjab went to polls and by evening the political fate of over 1200 contestants was stored in EVMs to be made known on March 11,2017. Amidst the election din – a mock tail of no-holds-barred-slugfest and trumpeting of a slew-of -never-to-be-kept promises by political parties, yours truly, has extracted a valuable piece of information. Please fancy the stuff.
On January 17, a couple of days after the election schedule for Punjab was announced , the Punjab Police , following a directive of the Election Commission, called back 1200 of its personnel who had earlier been assigned the job of providing security cover to nearly half this number of VIPs. Needless to add that ‘security cover’ of none of the VIPs falling under ‘Z’, ‘Z-Plus’ and a few categories down was compromised. During this highly charged period of electioneering beginning January 17 and up to February 4, barring a blast near an election rally which claimed six lives, none of these ‘VIPs’ thus exposed to some perceived ‘serious threat to their lives’, suffered any assault whatsoever. More importantly during this period there were 1200 more police personnel doing what they are basically meant to do – crime patrol, impacting the quality of life of the people of Punjab including those VIPs from which security cover was withdrawn. An inevitable and logical conclusion of this ‘election’ induced political science experiment would be that all those VIPs who were left without a security cover never deserved this privilege and all that loud noise of ‘threat perception’ is farce perpetuated by the people in power as a grant of favor and prop to political upstarts read activists. This is a barter system (you scratch my back and I will scratch your back) devised by all political parties for their mutual benefit alone. The Government of Jammu and Kashmir can benefit from this experiment and replicate the Punjab Police action of withdrawing its personnel from an otherwise ornamental job.
That the State of Jammu and Kashmir has been going through extra ordinary circumstances in view of cross border terrorism and internal unrest and does need to provide security cover to its executives as are involved in counter insurgency measures and anti terrorist activities is well known but providing cover to bureaucrats, police personnel and members of judiciary who have since been retired for over a decade now hardly makes sense. Official statistics of the state government make an interesting revelation. Out of the 1198 protected persons that include VIPs and political activists as many as 216 are ‘uncategorized persons’ (not holding any constitutional post or official position in the state) who have been given this security cover. Besides 284 political activists are given secured hotel accommodation. Moreover this cash starved Government spends as much as 105.25 cr. annually on VIP security. Besides their (VIPs) conduct in public space is wanting and profiling that would take many columns of this paper and I would also lose the thrust of my take on the subject.
Reeling under the weight of huge cost of sustaining their (VIPs), particularly those who come under the ‘uncategorized category’, comfort zone the Government of Jammu and Kashmir needs to address and mitigate ‘traffic woes’ of the people of Jammu where traffic congestion has reached at its peak. It is only in this State that a VIP vehicle propelled by discharge from the inflated ego of its VIP occupant, can jump a long queue of vehicles waiting for green signal and reach at the head of the queue with a show of defiance. You name any traffic related offence in the book, our VIPs violate that with characteristic disdain. This makes them unable to discern a barely suppressed sneer behind a forced smile on the faces of public as and when they come face to face. The only class which matches these VIPs in this game of ‘one-upmanship’ is comprised of our ‘desi boys’ — the indomitable Matador Drivers. If the VIPs derive their privilege from the position they hold, these marauders (Matador Drivers) on the road non-chalantly claim ‘ownership of the roads because apart from road tax they pay ‘hafta’ to traffic cops. No wonder they match in equal measure both the arrogance and disdain of their VIP peers. They can pick or drop their fare from anywhere on the road or right from the middle of a crossing with impunity. Both test peoples’ perseverance and contribute immensely to ‘traffic woes’ of our cities.
The long and short of this narrative is that the burgeoning traffic woes of our cities need to be addressed on a priority basis. Taking a cue from this Punjab experiment and without in anyway compromising the security of VIPs who fall under ‘categorized potential person’ umbrella the security cover of the ‘uncategorized’ can be withdrawn with prudence and the personnel so relieved can be added to the woefully short Traffic Force for better Traffic Management. Large chunk of amount thus saved can be utilized for properly calibrating /expanding the existing Traffic Signals System. Successive Governments of this state appear to have been manipulated by these VIPs for their parochial interests. The relative urgency and ease (ease of making funds available) with which a flyover has come up on Sidhra Bye pass for the convenience of a few score VIPs residing in Sidhra hamlet bears testimony to this fact. This also showcases the contemptuous neglect the successive State Governments have shown for over three decades old pressing need for better connectivity of Jammu city with its North and North-West parts. The present Government needs to exonerate itself of this serious charge.
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