States/UTs given Rs 96.13 cr to modernise police stations: Govt

The Centre has provided Rs 96.13 crore to states and Union Territories, between 2017-18 to 2020-21, for modernisation of police stations, the Parliament was told on Tuesday.
Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai, in a written reply to a question by LJP Lok Sabha member Chirag Paswan, said that out of the total, Rs 3.9 crore was released to the Bihar government for the modernisation of police stations.

In his reply, he also said that police and public order are state subjects, as per the seventh Schedule of the Constitution, and the states/UTs are primarily responsible for prevention, detection, investigation, and prosecution of crimes including cyber crimes.

He also informed the Lok Sabha that the Ministry of Home Affairs has been implementing Cyber Crime Prevention against Women & and Children (CCPWC) Scheme to deal with various issues related to cyber crime against women and children.

Under this scheme, financial assistance has been provided to all the states/UTs for setting up cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories, hiring of junior cyber forensic consultants and training, capacity building to provide hands-on training to law enforcement agencies personnel, public prosecutors and judicial Officers. Advisories have also been issued to states/UTs regarding using these training labs for capacity building programmes for police officials, Rai added.

Further, the MHA also implements the scheme of "Assistance to States for Modernisation of Police", under which the state governments are provided Central assistance to strengthen police infrastructure, including equipping of police stations, for acquisition of latest weaponry, training gadgets, advanced communication/forensic equipment, cyber policing equipment etc.

The state governments formulates their annual state action plans, as per their strategic priorities and requirements, and some of the State Governments utilise components of the scheme for prevention, detection, investigation, and prosecution of crimes, including cyber crimes, in their police stations, he added. -IANS