Par panel comes face-to-face with CISF personnel woes at IGI airport

New Delhi, May 25: Members of a parliamentary panel today came face-to-face with a barrage of civic woes being faced by CISF jawans living in barracks at IGI airport here even as Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi briefed it on the issue of modernisation of police forces.

Shocked by the civic woes and space crunch problem being faced by the CISF jawans, the panel has decided to quickly finalise a set of recommendations to change the living conditions of the personnel living in the barracks.

Earlier, appearing before the Standing Committee on Home Ministry chaired by Congress member P Bhattacharya, Mehrishi briefed on the issue of modernisation of police forces.

He briefed the members about plan and non-plan budgetary provisions with the regard to the modernisation of police forces and the steps being taken by the government in this regard, sources said.

Panel members then visited the CISF living quarters at IGI airport to assess the conditions of CISF personnel.

"Parliamentary Standing Committee went inspecting CISF living quarters and I was shocked to see the disrepair," BJP member Subramanian Swamy, who was recently made the member of the panel said, in a tweet after the visit. In an earlier tweet, he said that he was attending the first meeting of the Standing Committee of Home Ministry "to examine Home Secy on police modernisation".

Swamy was nominated to the committee on May 20. The panel has 31 members--21 from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha.

Sources said that the panel members, to the their "utter dismay", found the CISF jawans battling with lack of even basic water and toilet facilities.

"The living conditions of the jawans in these barracks is really bad. We will soon make recommendations to improve the facilities here," said a member on the condition of anonymity. The panel's next meeting is likely to be held in second week of June.

PTI