Not withstanding opposition protest on police recruitment, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav declared that his government will soon appoint another batch of 40,000 cops and said that he wants to make UP Police as one of the best forces in India.
Responding to the allegations made by opposition on the irregularities in the recruitment of police constables and sub-inspectors he said the recruitment was carried out in a “very transparent manner” and the procedure was flawless. “There is much ado about nothing. The appointments were made in different phases. No questions were asked after physical training and even after written examinations. Why questions are raised now. Had there been any discrepancy candidates might had objected then,” he asked saying the protests were supported by a political party.
Chief Minsiter declared that 40,000 more policemen would be appointed very soon. “We will adopt similar procedure as adopted now to recruit new breed,” he said. While replying to the debate on budgetary proposals of Home department in Vidhan Sabha on Thursday Chief Minister said that the law and order issue remains on the top of the priority list of for every government. A small incident can give a bad name to the government which in turn can effect investments in the state. So every government wants that crime rate should be low, he said.
Yadav claimed that the law and order situation in the state was well under control and by next year Government proposes to give all infrastructure to the police department to make it one of the best force in this country. But he did not elaborate as what kind of infrastructure government wishes to provide to the force.
“No one can stop crime in the society. But we can improve the reaction time of the police and my government is working in this direction. I want police to reach the site of crime within 15 minutes,” he said. He also talked about the projects his government has launched for the welfare of poor and farmers. “The ex-gratia payment to the kin of the farmers who lost their lives following crop loss in rains has been increased from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 7 lakh. We are concerned about the welfare of the farmers and the government has already ordered distribution of Rs 200 crore as relief ,” Chief Minister said.
Chief Minister admitted that opposition has not supported his government over implementation of several welfare schemes. Participating in the debate leader of the Opposition Swami Prasad Maurya said that ‘jungle raj’ prevailed in UP as criminals were enjoying patronage from the ruling party members. Maurya said during present regime 663 attacks have been carried out against policemen in which 225 of them have lost their lives.
BJP legislature party leader Suresh Kumar Khanna criticised the government on bad law and order situation and demanded a high level probe into the police recruitment scam. “Criminals are killing people inside courts, inside ATMs and offices. The incident of crime against women has gone up. This shows how inactive the police have been,” he said.
Congress legislature party leader Pradeep Mathur said that more steps are required for improving the law and order situation in the state. Rashtriya lok Dal (RlD) leader Dalbeer Singh too participated in the debate and demanded judicial probe into the police recruitment.