Among a number of preventive and precautionary deterrents to escalating militancy in the State during the early days of 1990, one was that of organized civil society’s rejection of violence as against the creed of mature and responsible citizens of the State. The police was already engaged in tackling militancy among the youth, yet it needed a complimentary support structure to perform effectively against the odds. State and Central authorities responsible for framing anti-militancy policy and programmes, hit upon a plan which would provide the much needed in put in various forms to the police as well as the army and other agencies handling security affairs. This came to be called Special Police Officers or SPOs in short. It is a force drawn from the civilian population from urban as well as rural parts of the State who are physically fit and mentally alert to furnish intelligence to the police, trace the movement of the militants and their underground activities and coordinate retaliatory action of security forces to thwart attempts of militants and their accomplices at subversion. They had to take initial training in handling small arms essentially for self defence. They are also entrusted with the duty of providing security to political personalities and some important Government and civilian functionaries as a part of Government’s duty to provide security to vulnerable sections of society. In an overall estimation, SPOs are also vulnerable to risk of life because, as we have seen, some of them did become the target of militants’ bullet while performing normal duty.
The SPOs are entitled to small honorarium of rupees 3,000 per month. There is a long standing demand of SPOs for enhancement of their remuneration. The State Government had taken the position that since this force is the creation of the Centre under security arrangement, therefore enhancement of their honorarium is entirely the discretion of the Central Government. The issue has been hanging fire despite the fact that the State Government has approached the Centre to take a favourable decision in this matter. The Centre has been examining the case and proposing a number of conditions amounting to ifs and buts and in the process the case has remained pending for a long time. Obviously, while Centre and the State both have implemented various recommendations of Pay Commissions during past two decades, the SPOs naturally feel disgruntled for discriminative treatment in their case. Their supplication for enhancement continued. At present, there are around 24,068 SPOs in the State posted at different places and for various types of duties. They all belong to the State and are well versed with local geography, conditions and people with whom they have been living and working.
The Governor has taken up the case of enhancement of their wages with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. In a formal communication to the Home Secretary, the Governor has given strong rationale for enhancement of their wages uniformly. The Governor says that SPOs have been carrying out operational duties through direct participation in anti-militancy operations, gathering intelligence, guarding vital installations and some of them work as force multipliers during law and order situations. Keeping in view their varied and interchangeable roles depending upon the ground requirements, it is difficult to categorize them on the basis of their skills or nature of the duty etc and prescribe different scales of honorarium to them. He has requested the Central Government to sanction uniform enhancement of monthly honorarium of all Special Police Officers (SPOs) from Rs 3000 to Rs 6000 w.e.f 1-1-2016.
We strongly support the recommendation of the Governor for enhancement of the remuneration of SPOs. We have to understand the difficult situation under which these workers are supposed to work. Since what we are fighting is a proxy war, it is very important to have a network of informative organization that can make it possible to track down the militants in their movement across various parts of the State and also unearth their conspiracies of subversion. We would have appreciated if the State could provide other facilities to the SPOs like exemption from tuition fee for their wards, free medical treatment and some perks for their families. It is also worth noting that enhancement in the honorarium to the SPOs is part of the package announced by the Prime Minister during his visit to Srinagar on November 7 last
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