Austerity measures have taken a toll on fuel consumption in paramilitary forces affecting the counter-insurgency operations, anti-Naxal measures and internal security roles in the various theatres of deployment.
Sources in the world’s biggest paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Border Security Force (BSF), country’s largest border guarding forces, said a major fuel oil crisis has hit the forces for the last four months and it has become acute February onwards.
The Union Home Ministry on its part has flagged concerns over the poor rate of attrition in the Maoist ranks during the last four months.
While BSF is deployed along Indo-Bangladesh and Indo-Pakistan borders, the CRPF is the lead anti-Naxal, counter-terror and anti-insurgency force deployed in the Northeast, Jammu & Kashmir and the ultra-left extremism-hit States. A budgetary cut of 10 per cent has been implemented as part of the ongoing austerity drive of the Government, sources in the paramilitary forces said.
The monthly stock is exhausted in the first three weeks of every month due to under supply. Supplies through additional oil tankers have also failed to meet the demand, including in Delhi where the directorates of the forces are located. As a result many of the vehicles allocated, especially to middle-level officials, are grounded and they are compelled to commute on their own, the sources said.
The sources said almost half of the vehicles in operational areas are not plying due to shortage of fuel adversely affecting routine movement, drills and operations. The CRPF has close to 17,000 vehicles including passenger cars, buses, trucks, recovery vans and mine protected vehicles and there is an outlay of over Rs 145 crore.
CRPF sources said “over centralisation” of procurement has further added to the woes of the paramilitary personnel. CRPF DG Dilip Trivedi is implementing a centralised mechanism of procurement of ‘petrol, oil, lubricant.’
The force’s personnel also faced acute shortage of kerosene during the winters in Kashmir due to irregular and insufficient supply of the fuel for use in bukharas. A senior CRPF official said a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been inked with the Indian Oil Corporation and a payment of Rs 9 crore has been given this week to the PSU and the supplies are expected to resume by first week of this month.
Earlier, the department of expenditure under the Union Finance Ministry had banned purchase of new vehicles including against condemned vehicles.
However, the ban was lifted in September last year for procurement against condemned vehicles. Apart from affecting movement and operations, such crisis further add up to the hardships of the paramilitary personnel deployed for long duration in hostile terrain and volatile security environment, away from family, officials added.