Patna, May 26: The government finally succumbed to pressure mounted by a host of leaders of police associations and decided to pay one month's honorarium to the men in uniform up to the sub-inspector rank.
The policemen right from constable to sub-inspector would now get honorarium equivalence to one month's salary on the lines of non-gazetted employees of the home (police) department. This would be in addition to their monthly salary for a year.
A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the cabinet chaired by chief minister Nitish Kumar today. This would benefit over 65,000 policemen, who have been exerting pressure on the government to concede to their demand. Earlier, the Jitan Ram Manjhi cabinet had adopted the proposal to this effect in December last year but soon it was cancelled by Nitish after assuming charge as chief minister. Since then, leaders of the Bihar Police Men's Association and the Bihar Police Association have been pressuring the government to fulfil their demands.
Cabinet coordination department principal secretary Shishir Sinha said: "The decision to pay one month's honorarium has been taken in the wake of strenuous work done by the men in uniform."
The cabinet also decided to delegate powers to transfer ownership of "gair majarua land" to district magistrate to facilitate five decimal of land for each landless families living in rural areas. Apart from landless people belonging to the Mahadalit category, the decision would also benefit poor people from other categories.
"Both the decisions passed by the Nitish cabinet were taken by Manjhi," a senior bureaucrat said under cover of anonymity. He said around 70,000 home guard jawans have also been exerting pressure to raise their daily allowances. The homeguard jawans launched an indefinite agitation to press for their demand.
Their agitation has resulted in total collapse of wireless communication network in the state. On Tuesday, the volunteers staged protest in front of the offices of the respective district magistrates.
A total of 23 proposals were passed at the meeting.