Chidambaram asks states to give high priority to modernize police forces

New Delhi, Feb 5 (ANI): Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Friday called upon the State Governments to give high priority to the strengthening of their police forces in budget allocation.

Addressing a meeting of the consultative committee attached to Home Ministry on "Modernization of Police Forces" Chidambaram lamented the fact that policing is not given the desired priority by the states while allocating funds in their budgets.

"The first duty of the Government is to provide security to its people without which no development is possible," Chidambaram said.

"The Centre has been forced to substantially increase the strength of its paramilitary forces, because the State forces could not be augmented and modernized to the desired level," he added.

Chidambaram said police and law and order being state subjects, it is the responsibility of the state Governments to modernize and augment its police forces.

"Under the Modernization Plan, the Centre has taken major steps to equip its paramilitary forces with new weapons and equipment and would continue to do so," he said.

Referring to the Scheme for Modernization of State Police Forces, Chidambaram said: "The Scheme only provides a helping hand to the States to build better police stations and provide modern weapons and communication systems, etc. to their forces."

"A lot more needs to be done by the States on their own, as the requirement is huge," he added.

Chidambaram also stressed the need for the States to quickly recruit sufficient number of policemen to fill up the existing vacancies and bring about the desired expansion of their forces. (ANI)