ISLAMABAD, June 15: The government has earmarked a sum of Rs483 million under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for police reforms for the fiscal year 2003-2004, an official of the National Reconstruction Bureau told Dawn.

He said Rs52 million would also be spent on police reforms under foreign assistance, increasing the total outlay for the police to Rs555 million.

The allocation would be utilized for five ongoing projects which are: establishment of a forensic science laboratory for Islamabad police, provision of wireless equipment, troops carrier to the police and setting up of a national criminal database and automated finger printing identification system.

The official said Rs270 million, including the foreign aid of Rs20 million, had been earmarked for forensic science laboratory. The total cost of the project was stated to be Rs1.876 billion of which Rs452 million have already been spent.

He said an amount of Rs150 million had been allocated for provision of wireless equipment. The entire project would cost Rs2.144 billion and Rs400 million had already been utilized on it.

Similarly, an amount of Rs43 million has been allocated for purchase of troops carrier. So far no money has been spent on the project against its total cost of Rs2.1 billion.

For preparing the national criminal database, an amount of Rs10 million has been earmarked and the cost of the entire project was stated to be Rs1.3 billion.

Under police reforms, an automatic finger printing identification system would be introduced with an estimated cost of Rs68 million. For the current fiscal year, Rs10 million have been allocated for this purpose.