KARACHI: The Sindh government announced on Friday a 20 per cent increase in the budget for security in the provincial budget of 2014-15 with a ‘special Rs4.65 billion allocation’ for operational needs of the police.

“The budget for the law-enforcement agencies will increase by 20 per cent from the outgoing year’s Rs44.86 to Rs54.08 billion the next year,” said Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah while speaking at the Sindh Assembly’s budget session.

“We are keeping a special allocation of Rs4.65 billion for the operational requirements of police in the budget. This allocation will be used for new recruitments and procurement of arms, vehicles and other necessary equipment for police. We are determined to transform our police force into a highly trained, well equipped and efficiently organised force capable of meeting tough challenges posed by terrorists and militant organisations operating in the province,” he said.

About computerisation of armed licences project launched last year, he said, an initial allocation of Rs254 million had been set aside for this initiative, which would help check and control illegal arms.

In the annual development programme (ADP) portfolio for prisons and police, he said, the government had earmarked Rs1.5 billion.

“The major [development] schemes include rehabilitation and renovation of jails and construction of new jails, residential quarters for prison and police constables and head constables, new police stations and also for installation of mobile jammers and video surveillance system in jails across the province,” he added.

He praised his government’s efforts with regard to ‘Karachi operation’ which he said was led by Sindh Rangers and added that the exercise had yielded desired results as the security situation had become far better in the city now as compared to last year’s.

“I am pleased to mention that through concerted efforts of our law enforcement agencies and through strong administrative and financial support provided by us, we have seen a decline of 65 per cent in targeted killings, 35 per cent in murders and 12 per cent in kidnapping for ransom,” he said. “But this success has not come without a cost. We have lost 117 jawans of police since the operation was launched in Karachi in September 2013,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2014