State governments are not giving "desired priority" to their police forces while allocating funds in their budgets, putting a burden on the Centre to increase the strength of para-military forces, Home Minister P Chidambaram has said.
"Policing is not given the desired priority by the states while allocating funds in their budgets... The Centre has been forced to substantially increase the strength of its para-military forces because the state forces could not be augmented and modernised to the desired level," he said.
His comments at the meeting of the consultative committee of his ministry last night come just ahead of Chief Ministers' Conference on Internal Security which is likely to discuss issues of terrorism, Naxalism, insurgency and modernisation of police and intelligence infrastructure in the country.
The home minister said, "Under the plan of modernization of police force, the Centre has taken major steps to equip its paramilitary forces with new weapons and equipment and would continue to do so. But, a lot more needs to done."