By Haryananewswire
CHANDIGARH, APRIL
15
The Haryana Government has favoured outsourcing of such
non-core functions of the police as servicing of summons; issuance of driving
licenses; arms license verification; recruitment to ministerial jobs in police
establishment; traffic control functions to progressively free the force for
use in priority areas. These functions should be handed over to outsourced
agencies in a phased manner after giving them requisite training.
These suggestions have been
made by the Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda in his
speech at the conference on administrative reforms in New Delhi today. As Mr
Hooda himself could not attend the conference because of some other pressing
engagements, Haryana Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Mr Randeep Singh Surjewala
represented the State. Besides Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde, Union Home Minister, and
Mr R.P.N Singh, Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs, Chief Ministers
and Home Ministers of states are attending the conference.
Mr
Hooda said in his speech that the state government had communicated its
detailed response to the 153 recommendations contained in the Administrative
Reforms Commission (ARC) report.
He said
that in keeping with the ARC suggestions, Haryana had set up State Police Board
to serve as an overall supervisory body at the highest level. It aids and
advises the state government, frames policy guidelines for prompt efficient,
responsive and accountable policing and evaluates organizational performance of
the police service in the state. “With fairly wide-ranging functions and powers
of the Board and well laid out procedures and rules, we have not felt any need
to have more institutions or boards in the administrative structure of the
state police”, he added.
Haryana has also set up a Police Complaints
Authority to serve as a watchdog on the police force within the ambit of the
Police Act. Further, the institution of Lokayukta too has been doing an
admirable job by investigating and bringing to book serious violations of law
inter alia, by police personnel. With all this, Haryana does not feel the need
for overarching supervisory and control systems like the state commission for
performance and accountability, board of investigation, inspectorates of police
etc, as envisaged in the ARC report, Mr Hooda said.
Welcoming the initiative of
the Government of India to formulate a model statutory witness protection
programme, Mr Hooda disclosed that Haryana had formulated a comprehensive
victims compensation scheme for which the state would provide necessary funds.
Under the scheme, victims of serious crimes would get compensated according to
the prescribed scale of compensation.
The Chief Minister favoured a strong federal
structure which would safeguard the autonomy of the state. “We cannot support
any step which compromises the federal structure in any manner. It is not
possible for us to support any provision which enables the Central Government
to move in the central forces into a state without the state’s consent or
requisition”, he said, adding that “federal crimes” should be identified and
listed.
On modernization of the police
force, he said that even after allocation of funds from the Centre under
the Modernization of Police Force Programme had been diminishing, Haryana had
kept up the momentum through financial and administrative means. “As a result,
today we have been able to create systems and assets of great utility. To
illustrate, we have two high-tech control rooms in the state, a comprehensive
system of surveillance in the main urban centres is under implementation, we
have a large and modern fleet of vehicles, PCRs fitted with GPS are patrolling
urban areas, a high-speed telecommunication network is spread throughout the
state”, he added.
On the issue of separation of criminal investigation from
law and order functions, he said that Haryana had set up an independent State
Crime Branch. There is also a dedicated investigation unit in every police
station. Effort is made to ensure that the tenure of officers deployed on the
investigation side, remains stable so that expertise and competence acquired by
them is gainfully utilized.
Agencies connected with criminal
investigation like the Forensic Science Laboratory, Finger Print Bureau,
criminal investigating agencies at the district level, are independent of the
law-and-order machinery of the police. Given this, Haryana did not feel the
need for a board of investigation, Mr Hooda said.
Regarding setting up of dedicated police to carry out
enforcement work for government departments, Mr Hooda said the state had
dedicated police units permanently attached to the power and irrigation
departments. “We are of the considered view that in Haryana, there is no need
for a separate metropolitan police force. Police Commissionerate systems have
been established in major towns and are functioning well. Any overlap of
jurisdiction or separation of command would not be desirable”, he added.
Committed
to the welfare and well-being of police personnel, the Haryana Government
liberally contributes to police welfare funds. Six top quality police
schools have been set up and police housing has been taken up as a priority
project. Training of police force remains a priority. “Our training institutions
working at Madhuban, Bhonsdi in district Gurgaon, Suneria in
district Rohtak, Newal in district Karnal and Hisar have been doing
yeomen’s service in the field of imparting foundational training as also
upgrading the skills of policemen at different levels. We have also had the
opportunity of training the police personnel from a few foreign countries like
Srilanka and Afghanistan”, Mr Hooda said.
Conscious of the importance of
having women in the police force, the state government has set up two Mahila Police
Stations and four more are coming up. All women mobile PCRs are operating in
major cities. “Our aim is that at least ten per cent of our police force should
be women. We also propose to raise an all woman IRB battalion and for this, I
would urge the Government of India to give the necessary support”, Mr Hooda
added.
In Haryana, we support all measures which strengthen the
capabilities of the district administrations in pre-empting and controlling law
and order situations. Coordination between the District Magistrate or executive
magistrates and the Police force has not been an issue. Being endowed with
excellent logistics and communication network, prompt joint action is achieved
easily with no problems regarding their mutual coordination. Haryana has
computerized all police stations and FIRs are being entered and copies thereof
generated through computers.
Regarding confession before the police, “We are
strongly against any changes in the existing provisions of the Cr.P.C and the
Indian Evidence Act. Confession made before the police cannot be made
admissible irrespective of the precautions taken. We cannot tinker with the
basic rights and freedom of citizens. We however, support the recommendation
regarding the judge’s obligation to proactively ascertain the truth during the
trial and also the increased proposed punishment for perjury”, Mr Hooda added.
He said that we would also welcome any initiative by the
Government of India to formulate a model statutory witness protection
programme. In this context, he said that Haryana has formulated a comprehensive
victims compensation scheme for which the State will provide the
necessary funds. Under the scheme, victims of serious crimes would get
compensated as per a prescribed scale of compensation.
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