Cops high on spending, poor on security

Times of India: Hayderabad: Tuesday, March 26, 2013.

The state government may have spent more than Rs 1,500 crore on upgrading security, training police and buying equipment between 2008 and 2012, but the force is still failing to make the city secure, activists alleged on Monday.

After much dilly-dallying, the state home department furnished details of Government Orders (GO), which were marked confidential, under the Right to Information (RTI) Act recently. The GOs reveal details of the money spent on training and procuring arms and ammunition and also sophisticated equipment.

If about Rs 7 crore was spent on procuring arms and ammunition for counter-terrorist operations wing (OCTOPUS) in 2009-10, then in the same year about Rs 10 crore was allotted to police department for the purchase of vehicles and equipment. In 2011, about Rs 2 crore was spent on bore pump action guns, while in the same year an equal amount was spent for procuring grenades and tear and stun shells.

Surprisingly, substantial amount was also spent on CCTVs and other electronic devices which, however, did not prove to be of much help in the recent blasts. "It is very clear from the GOs that large amount of money is being spent on the police department but what exactly are they doing to make the city safe or thwart any terrorist attacks is not clear," Ganji Srinivasa Rao, a city-based activist, who had filed the RTI, said. "As an average citizen I have the right to know how the tax-payers' money is being spent by the home department. It makes no sense to mark it confidential and hide the facts from public," he added. He said that it was a shame that the city is witnessing terrorist attacks despite huge money being spent for training and equipment by the home department.

Rao also said that most of these GOs pose no internal security threat and in fact contain some very trivial ones. "There are confidential GOs related to funds spent on training sniffer dogs and some on the bandobust during festivals. While there are also some which are related to salaries of home guards and amount spent on sprucing up building of the department. How can these be confidential?" he reasoned.