700 state jawans threaten to resign en mass

SHILLONG, JAN 14: Left without a commander and a life to fend for themselves,  seven hundred jawans of the 4^th Meghalaya police Indian Reserve Battalion (IRBN) posted in Delhi have threaten to resign en-mass if their demands for providing better living conditions and the allowances due to them are ignored by the Meghalaya government.

These 4^th MLP IRBN jawans are posted in Delhi mainly to guard the residences of VIPs and VVIPs.

The distressed jawans called up Shillong based reporters from Delhi and narrated their stories of woes on Monday. According to one of them, besides being left without a commander S Reddy, who has been posted as the Ri-Bhoi district SP recently, the government has not paid the monthly food allowances of Rs 600 for the last eight months. He told one of the reporters, “We have been buying ration from our own money as the government has not paid the food allowance of Rs 600 for the last eight months.”

These jawans who are doing duty in the national capital has not even got the travelling allowance of Rs. 10,000 due to all of them. The TA of Rs. 10, 000 is due to them as the travelling expense of the jawans from their home state Meghalaya to the national capital when they were posted.

Repeated reminder by these jawans to their higher ups and also the Meghalaya government seems to have gone unnoticed as they continue to live in a dismal state besides spending their own money for food. Now, said the jawan, we are left without a commander and this is really very a very serious issue.

However, Meghalaya DGP Kulbir Kishan told this website that he has not receive any complaints on such grievances from the jawans posted in Delhi, but promised to verify on the issue raised by them.

Kishen, however, said, “Grievances will always be there but if they have a problem they should have brought before me. “ As the state DGP, he said, he was responsible for the entire force and would take immediate steps to ensure that their grievances are addressed.

With regards to the absence of a commandant, Kishen informed that a deputy commandant of the Meghalaya Police Service of 2004 batch will take temporary charge as a commandant till elections are over. He also revealed that as the MLP 4^th IRPB has completed two years in Delhi the next batch belonging to the 5^th battalion will replaced them in March. –By Our Reporter