PESHAWAR: The Rs200 million budgetary allocations for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police to investigate crimes across the province brings the spending on a single crime to a paltry Rs1,320 and thus, adversely affecting the quality of investigations, sources said.

Sources told Dawn that the KP Rule of Law Roadmap envisages improvement in investigation function, which in turn is heavily dependent on financial allocations for the purpose.

An official said the province’s police had got Rs200.9 million for investigations in the financial year 2019-20, whereas 152,209 crimes were reported in the province last year.

He said on average, there’s Rs1,320 for investigating a crime, which was a highly insufficient amount.

The official said despite the best efforts of investigators, limited funds hampered their performance and thus, impacting the quality of their work.

Official says no revision of probe costs since 2009

He said the investigation required collection of evidence, their forensic analysis and arrest of the accused and all those functions had financial implications.

The official said the government had revised the cost of investigations last time in 2009.

“Inflation has reduced the real value of the amount sanctioned for every case to a large extent,” he said, adding that other provinces have already revised the cost of investigations multiple times since.

The official said it was imperative to revise those costs in the province and the police had conducted an extensive exercise to realistically revise the cost of investigations taking into account the requirement of various cases.

He said under the proposed revised estimates put the KP police investigation budget at Rs2.18 billion per annum.

The official said to enhance the investigation budget, the police department had shared a summary with the government.

He said the police department’s summary had also requested among other things that the cost of investigation be allowed to be drawn in advance on a monthly basis to the tune of 50 per cent of amount calculated on the basis of the average number of crimes committed in a police station’s limits in a given month in light of the last year’s trend, as the nature of expenditure made in connection with the investigation of cases was such that it required advance payment to the investigative officer.

The official said the drawing disbursing officer would be responsible for paying the cost of investigation to the officers in advance out of amount thus drawn and would maintain a permanent register to record the advance drawn in order to maintain financial discipline.

He added that the police had requested Rs500 million supplementary grant to improve investigation function during the current fiscal.

The official said the police department had also requested the government for enhancement of the authorisation of transport and fuel.

He said transport authorisation and police station fuel limits were last revised in 2009, so the department faced an acute shortage of transport and fuel ceiling, which needed to be increased due to the increase in the police’s strength from 35,000 in 2009 to 87,000 in 2020.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2020