UP Govt Making Every Attempt to Ensure Home Guards' Services Remain Intact, Says Minister

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government said on Friday that it is making every attempt to ensure that 25,000 home guards personnel, who were removed from duty, can be deployed in the police department.

"Due to non-availability of funds from the finance department, the police department removed nearly 25,000 homeguards from service. But the government is making every attempt that the services of these jawans remain intact," Home guards Minister Chetan Chauhan told reporters here.

Chauhan said a meeting with the police department and finance department were held on Friday.

"In the meeting, it was said that the police department needs the services of these jawans," he said. "Discussions were also held to remove paucity of funds. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been briefed with the outcome of the meeting."

The minister said that there was some fund available with the home department and he would meet the chief minister to get it.

"If the 25,000 home guards are not deployed in the police department, then they will comeback to their parent department, and the homeguard department will assign duties to them. However, the duty days will be less, as the budget of the department is less," Chauhan said.

The Uttar Pradesh government had on Tuesday announced that it was doing away with 25,000 home guards as the state could not afford the new allowances the Supreme Court has asked it to pay, only to reverse it hours later, saying no one would be removed.

Officials said a large number of home guards were taken on in April. The Supreme Court order in July, however, meant a hike in the cost of deploying them.

The daily allowance for the home guards is now Rs 672, up from the Rs 500 before the court order. The government said this would have cost the state an extra expenditure of Rs 10-12 crore every month. It, therefore, decided not to deploy the home guards, meant for security at police stations and traffic signals.

The home guards are not permanent employees and are recruited on a casual basis. They do not have any fixed monthly salary and are paid based on the number of days of duty.

Till now, they have been expected to work for 25 days but the government decreased it to 15 days.