J&K spends over 5% of its budget on police

Jammu & Kashmir government spends a little over 5% of its annual budget on police, an official report reveals.

The J&K government had earmarked 6.96% and 5.87% of funds in the annual budget for police in 2016-17 and 2017-18 respectively, the report titled” Data on Police Organisations”, prepared by Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD), says.

The BPRD comes under the administrative control of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. The report contains details about expenditure of state/union territory police forces and modernization grants provided by the Centre for strengthening police.

According to the report, Rs 4293 crore were earmarked for J&K police in Rs 61680 crore budget for 2016-17. Similarly, out of Rs 76635 crore budget, Rs 4478. 76 crore were earmarked for police in 2017-18.

The report also reveals that Rs 59.55 crore modernization grants were provided to Jammu & Kashmir police in 2017-18. The modernization grants, allocated by MHA, are utilized for upgrading the infrastructure of the police forces in order to improve their capabilities to meet the emerging challenges pf internal security in the form of militancy, extremism and naxalism.

The J&K police, which have been at the forefront of anti-militancy operations, has strength of 83000 personnel. This excludes 30000 special police officers (SPOs). The J&K police came into existence in 1873 with appointment of one police officer known as ‘kotwal’ and 14 ‘thanedars’ for Srinagar city.

Since then J&K police has undergone several re-organizations. In 1889-90, the strength of police was just 1040, which rose to 1570 in 1903 and 40-years later, in 1943-44, the strength further grew to 3179.