NEW DELHI: The lone Rajya Sabha Member from Meghalaya, Wansuk Syiem rued that the Centre’s decision to stop funds for the vital police modernization programme in the Hill State will hit hard the insurgency affected state.
“In my state there are two major militant outfits, a host of other outfits and the law and order situation arising out of this menace was being controlled through police modernization programme funded by the Centre,” Wansuk said.
“But unfortunately this has been stopped in this year’s budget putting the beleaguered state government under great stress,” she added.
“As it is, Meghalaya is a border state and militants not only misuse its vast but porous territory with neighbouring Bangladesh but also make it a sanctuary and passage,” the MP said adding that a small state like Meghalaya cannot fight such a huge challenge on its own with its limited revenue base.
Wansuk, who arrived here on Saturday, pointed out, in a communication to the Centre that until last year, under the Congress-led UPA regime, Meghalaya had been receiving substantial amount of funds from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs under the scheme of Modernization of Police Force.
Under this scheme, states and union territories were provided cent percent grants-in-aid to be utilized for expenditure of non-recurring nature on purchase of vehicles, wireless equipment, computers and other sophisticated equipment and for development of critical infrastructure in extremely affected areas, setting up of crime and criminal tracking network and systems and for establishment of counter-insurgency and anti-terrorist schools, she said.
Wansuk’s demand was earlier buttressed by Chief Minister, Mukul Sangma, who gave an overall security scenario of Meghalaya vis-a-vis the militancy problem.
“The militants are armed with latest weapons and sophisticated gadgets and cannot be easily countered by the state’s police forces using normal weaponry, hence, the need for constant up gradation,” he said.
Even the department-related Parliamentary Standing committee on Home Affairs itself had pulled up the NDA Government for delinking the “Modernization of Police Forces” from the Centre’s support. Majority of the MPs were against the government’s move and were of the view that the decision would adversely affect the state police forces.
Until now, modernization of police forces was a national scheme under the umbrella of a centrally sponsored scheme. But, in the Budget 2015-16 it was delinked with the suggestion that states may continue the same on their own terms.
The standing committee had reacted strongly against the decision and told officials that the state police forces would soon be good enough to kill birds, but not terrorists.
