New Delhi, April 15 (IANS) Favouring a strong federal structure to safeguard the autonomy of the state, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that he would not support the central government to send forces into a state without its consent.
“We cannot support any step which compromises the federal structure in any manner. It is not possible for us to support any provision which enables the central government to deploy central forces in a state without the state’s consent or requisition,” Hooda said.
Hooda said that “federal crimes” should be identified and listed.
Hooda’s address at the chief ministers’ conference on police reforms here Monday was read out by Haryana’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala. Hooda could not attend the conference.
The Haryana government also asked the union government to allow outsourcing of non-core functions of police to other agencies.
“The Haryana government favours outsourcing of non-core functions of police as servicing of summons, issuance of driving licenses, arms license verification, recruitment to ministerial jobs in police establishment, traffic control functions to progressively free the force for use in priority areas,” Surjewala said on behalf of Hooda.
He said that Haryana had taken a number of steps towards administrative reforms, including setting up of a state police board, to serve as an overall supervisory body at the highest level and a police complaints authority to serve as a watchdog on the police force.
Welcoming the initiative of the central government to formulate a model statutory witness protection programme, Surjewala said that Haryana has formulated a comprehensive victims’ compensation scheme for which the state would provide necessary funds.
“Under the scheme, victims of serious crimes would be compensated according to the prescribed scale of compensation,” he said.
He added that the Haryana government had kept up the momentum of police modernisation despite the diminishing central funds for the same in the past few years.
–Indo-Asian News Service
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