Gujarat police is firing on empty!

State has been asking for bullets for three years, says home minister

PTI | March 5, 2010



The Gujarat police has guns but no bullets to fire from it, Minister of State for Home Amit Shah said in the state assembly, while replying to a question pertaining to police modernisation.

"We have been asking for bullets for our police force for the last three years but we have got nothing," Shah said on Friday during a discussion on 'Modernisation of Police Fund (MPF)' raised by BJP MLA Nanu Vanani from Surat (North).

"The situation is such that we do not have enough bullets for our policemen to practise. We have gun but no bullets to fire from it," he added.

Gujarat is high on terror radar and it had witnessed serial blasts in July 2008, in which 57 people were killed.

The minister also lamented the fact that the union government has reduced allocation under MPF from Rs.119.53- crore in 2000-01 to Rs.49.33-crore in 2006-07.

"Gujarat has an international land and sea border with Pakistan and also has a 1,600 km-long coastline. Those states with long coastlines need modern equipments and scientific instruments to curb terrorism," Shah said adding even Rs 100- crore per year for police modernisation is not enough now.

"But despite our demands the Union government had decreased the MPF. We had also made representations at various levels in the Centre to allocate separate funds for mega-cities like Ahmedabad and Desert Area policing," he said.

Shah said Gujarat Chief Minister has been raising the issue at the CMs meeting with the Prime Minister on internal security since last three years.

Despite this, Gujarat's demand has not been taken into consideration, he lamented.

The minister said that in the last three years there has been significant increase in MPF from Rs 69.40-crore in 2007-08 to Rs 87.47-crore in 2009-10.

In reply to another question related to border security by BJP MLA Bharat Barot, Shah gave a written reply that a special battalion has been created for security of border areas and fight against terrorists.

Shah said that for coastal security a Marine police force has been created with a strength of 566 personnel.

Moreover, for security of border areas in Kutch and Jamnagar districts two new State Reserve Police (SRP) batallions of 1,200 personnel each have been created.

The state government has also created a Raksha Shakti University for training youth in the state in terms of internal security and police science.

The first academic session of the university would commence from June this year.

Comments

 

Other News

Global South: Health cooperation needs institutions to make solutions scalable

September 12 marks the International Day for South-South Cooperation, commemorating the 1978 Buenos Aires Plan of Action (BAPA). Forty-eight years later, its central proposition remains relevant: countries of the Global South can draw on their own knowledge, experience and innovations to address shared d

Reading the mind of Xi Jinping

As India prepares to host the 18th BRICS Summit this weekend, and as prime minister Narendra Modi is set to hold a bilateral meet with president Xi Jinping, China’s growing global influence and the changing dynamics of India-China relations will be under focus. But to understand where China is head

BRICS at 20: From economic weight to global influence

This year marks 20 years of BRICS, with India set to host the grouping’s leaders’ summit this weekend. The anniversary offers an opportune moment to assess BRICS’ growing importance at a time when the effectiveness of global governance and the credibility of multilateralism are under in

Former president Ram Nath Kovind on some of his unforgettable journeys

Triumph of the Indian Republic: My Life, My Struggles By Ram Nath Kovind Rupa Publications, 400 pages, Rs 795   All our presidents so far stand out, each for a different reason. Ram Nath Kovind, the 14th president of India, from 2017 t

Uday Kotak on history, Indian economy, growth and more

Pathbreakers: How 10 Visionary Leaders Transformed India by award-winning journalists  By Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu Rupa Publications, 304 pages, Rs 695  

₹5,000 crore saved from suspected financial fraud

In a significant gain for citizen protection in the digital economy, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has helped prevent suspected cyber fraud losses of more than ₹5,000 crore through its Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) within fifteen months of its launch on May 22, 2025. This money did

Upcoming Conferences



-->

Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter