By IANS,
Agartala : The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has strongly criticised the union ministry of home affairs (MHA) for providing faulty equipment for modernisation of security forces in Tripura.
“The POLNET (Police Communication Network) project was not functioning properly as all the Remote Station Units (RSU) in 34 of the 64 police stations in Tripura had developed faults,” the latest CAG report said.
“No corrective action was taken to make them operational while their warranty period expired Nov 2007.”
POLNET is a satellite based integrated network, which envisages installation of Very Small Aperture Terminals (V-SAT) and Multi Access Radio Telephone (MART) to link the national capital with all the state capitals.
The main objective of POLNET is to obtain data and information through sharing and dissemination of information with other police organisations, central paramilitary forces (CPMF) inside and outside the states across the country.
“During 2003-2008, modern equipment were centrally procured by the MHA and sent to all the states, including Tripura. During installation or after the installations, the RSUs were found to be faulty,” said the report, which was presented in the Tripura assembly Thursday.
“The desired objective of sharing and disseminating information with other police organisations and CPMF could not be achieved despite spending about Rs.7.4 million.”
“Inadequate planning resulted in utilisation of only 10 to 63 percent of the available funds for modernisation of state police forces during 2003-2008,” the CAG report added.
It said that there was shortage of vehicles ranging from 43 to 53 percent and that had an adverse effect on mobility of the force.
Against the projected requirement of arms and ammunition of Rs.443.8 million for 2003-2008 in the perspective plan, the Tripura Police received arms and ammunition worth only Rs.30.6 million through the subsequent annual plans.
Just one percent of the trainee strength of Tripura State Rifles personnel have been trained on counter insurgency and jungle warfare techniques during 2003-2008 due to lack of infrastructure in the training schools, the report added.