Police, admn inaction costs govt over Rs 1.5 cr

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 24

Had the administration and police officials posted in Phagwara and Kapurthala been more vigilant and ensured that the feud between the two communities got settled in time, the state government would have today not got burdened with an additional cost of nearly more than Rs 1.5 crore in handling the paramilitary forces, additional police force, medical expenses and other overhead costs.

While initially eight companies of the Border Security Force (BSF), four of the Rapid Action Force (RAF) and one of ITBP were deployed, now the BSF companies have been sent back and five companies still remain jointly with Phagwara and Kapurthala, said DGP (Law and Order), Hardeep Dhillon.

A top bureaucrat said that the average charges that the Central government levies for such a deployment of paramilitary forces includes Rs 50,000 per person per month. “Each company consists of 100 men, of whom 70-80 hold active charge, while the remaining are static. Going by this figure and assuming working out only on five companies that have remained here for 10 days, the cost almost comes to Rs 84 lakh. The BSF remained deployed only for three days or so, for which the eight companies would levy an additional Rs 40 lakh. Rounding off, the cost would be nearly Rs 1.25 crore till date,” he worked out the figure.

Keeping the forces for additional days would obviously mean that the cost would further go up. IG, Jalandhar zone, Naunihal Singh, said, “If we assess today’s situation, it has become quite peaceful. Most demand of the Dalit communities have been accepted at their meeting with the Punjab CM today. Since the other community is sitting on dharna, we still would continue to watch the situation. As of date, we will keep the available forces with us and will thin these out only in a phased manner.”

Since the state government has accepted to pay up for the medical bills of the two injured youths, the cost of their treatment too is likely to be not less than Rs 20-25 lakh.

Residents point out that the negligence of the officials concerned in whose presence the firing incident took place is even responsible for the loss of crores of rupees which businessmen from the city had to bear as they have had hardly any clientele for 10 days now. A market got closed even today owing to protests.

“No one will repay the huge losses that we incurred. The police forced us to pull down the shutters on the fourth day. We had to call in workers. Our costs kept running, but income remained nil. People did not even come to pick their old orders. When we called them that their garments had been altered, even still they said that they won’t and rather asked us to deliver items at their places,” said a showroom owner.

Meanwhile, the BSP leaders, including state president Rachhpal Raju and Sukhwinder Kotli, held a meeting at Phagwara and expressed their dissatisfaction over community’s meeting with the Chief Minister. We want all names of our community in the FIRs to go, they said.