Bhardwaj for hike in honorarium to SPOs

Our Correspondent

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Nurpur, August 4
Lok Sabha MP from Kangra Rajiv Bhardwaj today said he had appealed to Home Minister Amit Shah to enhance monthly honorarium to 520 special police officers (SPOs) posted in Chamba district to Rs 20,000.
The SPOs had been recruited by the government after a terror attack at Satrundi in Chamba district in August 1998 in which 46 residents were killed and many kidnapped.
Stating that he had taken up the issue in Parliament, Bhardwaj said initially, the SPOs were given monthly honorarium of Rs 1,500, which was enhanced to Rs 3,000 in 2006 and now they were getting Rs 6,000. Meanwhile, the SPOs in Jammu and Kashmir were being given a monthly honorarium of Rs 18,000, Bhardwaj said, adding that the Centre should enhance honorarium to SPOs in Chamba to Rs 20,000 per month and end this discrimination.
Bhardwaj said he had also demanded opening of a Sainik School in the Nurpur area, besides a Central school in the Churah area of Chamba district. The MP said a National Institute of Technology should also come up in Chamba district, as at present this premier institute was only in Hamirpur district.
He said Chamba was a backward district and had been declared as an ‘Aspirational District’ in 2018, but it still needed a lot of infrastructural facilities.