Uttar Pradesh Spends 120 Cr to Protect VIPs

Lucknow: With security often seen as a status symbol, the Uttar Pradesh government is spending 120 crore annually in public money to provide security cover to around 1,500 VIPs of different hues, deploying as many as 2,913 police officials, officials records show.   Inspector general of police (law & order) Badri Prasad Singh admitted that 1,476 VIPs (very important persons) were being given security based on "pre-emptive threat perception".

"Police does a security check of the threat perception to a person who has applied for security from the state and thereafter the home department approves it," Singh told IANS.

Those on VIP security duty include constables, head constables, gunners and sub-inspectors. The government spends over 120 crore on this security cover every year, said officials.

Officials however privately admit that the cover to "so-called" VIPs is "always and largely a political decision" and there is little police officers and bureaucrats can do about it.

"Security has become somewhat of an obsession and status symbol and people arm-twist their way through the government system," Vikram Singh, a former director general of police, told IANS.

Government sources say more than 10,000 applications requesting security cover are pending before the home department and the officials are at their wits' end handling them.

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