Bhubaneswar, Sept. 3: The Odisha government has failed to utilise funds from the central government for modernisation of its police force.
Of Rs 20.28 crore provided by the Centre during 2011-12, the Odisha government could spend only Rs 4.80 crore by March 31, 2012. Bulk of the amount had been spent on purchasing vehicles for its officers and forces. However, the Odisha government could not utilise a single pie from a sum of Rs 1.80 crore meant for purchase of sophisticated weapons. Also, the government could not spend any amount from an allocation of Rs 21 lakh meant for improving traffic system.
These facts were revealed from a written reply given by chief minister Naveen Patnaik to a question of BJD member Ananta Das today.
Though Odisha’s success in combating Maoist activities depends mostly on intelligence inputs, the state had not used Rs 88 lakh provided by the centre for this purpose. The Centre had extended Rs 1.34 crore for training Odisha’s police personnel, but the state could spend only Rs 15.73 lakh.
The Centre had released Rs 30 lakh to purchase equipment to curb crime. But not a single pie was spent on this account till March 31. The Odisha government also failed to construct houses for its police force, though the Centre had released Rs 3.5 crore for the purpose.
The Odisha government, however, managed to utilise the allocation of Rs 4.08 crore meant for buying vehicles. Last year, the comptroller and auditor general had criticised the Odisha government for its failure to spend money meant for modernisation of police.
Naveen’s reply to Das said, Odisha would get Rs 69 crore for modernisation of police force during the current fiscal. Besides, it will get another Rs 85.15 crore under Security Related Expenditure Scheme.
In response to another question, Naveen said: “The Odisha government has taken a wide range of pro-active steps to enhance the capacity of security forces. It has banned the CPI(Maoist) and seven of its frontal organisations. We have also implemented a surrender and rehabilitation scheme to bring back the Maoists to the mainstream of the society.”
“As many as 959 Maoists have been arrested and 99 died from 2006 till August, 2012, while some 134 rebels have surrendered,” he said.
