3

Police force in districts

On 10 March 1951, the Government placed before the Assembly a demand of Rs 6,06,75,600 to be voted by the Assembly for the expenditure on District Executive Force and District Police Force. There were several Cut Motions. Shri Chavan, as Parliamentary Secretary, replied *to the discussion on 12 March 1951.
He gave reasons for the increase in, the expenditure on Agriculture, the Police, Civil Administration, stating the circumstances requiring it. He asserted that the success of the novel experiment introduced in the Police Department would depend on (1) the appreciation of that method by the Legislature, (2) the proper guidance and support of the administration and (3) the active co-operation of the people.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I shall try to classify the arguments that have been advanced by my hon. Friends, Shri Jadhav and Shri Bhapkar and the hon. Mover of the Cut Motion into two or three categories. They have exhausted all their information about what is happening in the State in their speeches which took up practically three hours. I, however, find that there are only a very few of their arguments which need to be replied to.

The first argument that was advanced by my hon. Friend, Shri Bhapkar was regarding the disproportionate expenditure on the police item. The hon. Member Shri Jadhav also referred to this point. I shall take up that point first. The question of expenditure on the police by itself is an interesting subject for study. I had a look at the expenditure on this item for the last 10 years and I came across some very interesting information.

In 1940-41 the expenditure was about 1 crore and 57 lakhs. It is true that in 1951-52 the expenditure has come to 9 crores and 8 lakhs. No doubt, it appears to be a very stupendous increase, but we must try to examine why this increase has come about. Those who have tried to study this aspect have divided this period into two parts, namely, the period upto 1945-46 and the period from 1946-47 to 1951-52. In the first period, the increase is from 1 crore and 57 lakhs to 4 crores and 92 lakhs. This is the period when the Second World War was on. Anyone who has tried to look into the increase in the revenue resources of our State in this period would have marked that the revenue resources shot up from nearly 12 crores to 45 crores. The expenditure on every item, namely, agriculture, police, civil administration, etc., also went on increasing in this period. This question was examined by the Administrative Enquiry Committee and it gave its verdict upon the reasons for the increase in the revenue resources as well as expenditure. The Administrative Enquiry Committee has said that because the scope of activities of these departments was naturally widened and because of the circumstances then prevailing, this increase in expenditure was inherently justified. So, we have got the opinion of experts as regards the increase in expenditure in the first period and that goes to show that we have tried to look at things from a scientific point of view.
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*BLA Debates, Vol. 18, Part II, (Inside No. 23), 12 March 1951, pp. 1394-98