Mah budget to focus on development with security

Mumbai, Sep 12 (UNI) Acknowledging that Maharashtra is the target of terrorists, Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil today said that the budgetary focus on the state government would be ''development with security''.

Talking to reporters here, Mr Patil said the state's expenditure on security related matters was 3.7 per cent of the total state budget as compared to the national percentage of 5.3 of the total budget.

''We always focussed on development while making budgetary provisions. But, the time has come to formulate a plan for development with security'', he said adding a detailed proposal would be prepared and submitted to the cabinet within eight days.

Mr Patil earlier attended a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to discuss about strengthening the state intelligence department which has come in for lot of flak after the Mumbai train blasts and Malegaon bomb blasts on July 11 and September eight respectively.

The Deputy Chief Minister said the Home department has decided to recruit 50 per cent of the workforce directly instead of deputation from the state police. ''The proposal has been forwarded to the Finance department after which it will be placed before the cabinet for approval'', he added.

The other issues discussed at the meeting including hiking allowances and salaries of police personnel, equipping them with modern electronic gadgets and weapons, he said. Mr Patil said intelligence officials are always on a three-year deputation.

''By the time, the officials get a hold over intelligence inputs and informers on the underworld and gather information on their functioning, they are transferred. Hence, there is no consistency'', he added.

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