The Hindu : STF to be strengthened

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 27, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

STF to be strengthened

By Radha Venkatesan

CHENNAI Aug. 26 . With Veerappan back at his kidnap game, the Tamil Nadu Government, which spent Rs. 25.13 crores on chasing the forest brigand in the last 15 months, today decided to put more men and money into the operation. Three months after downsizing the Special Task Force, the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, after a 20-minute meeting with top police officials here, appears to have given the nod for ``augmentation'' of the STF to step up the hunt for the brigand.

The size of the force, which now comprises 953 personnel including two companies of the Tamil Nadu Special Police, may be doubled. Soon after Ms. Jayalalithaa took over in May last year, the revamped STF was sanctioned 1,618 personnel including six companies of the TSP. However, after a one-year wasted chase, the STF was downscaled and the operational strategy shifted from combing operations to intelligence gathering.

But Veerappan has struck again, and the STF, headed by the retired DGP, W.I. Dawaram, appointed by the AIADMK regime on contract for a monthly pay of over Rs. 25,000, besides perks, remains clueless, while the cost of the chase shoots up staggeringly.

After revamping the STF, a range of special concessions from a Rs. 1,500-risk allowance to a Rs. 900-hardship allowance and one-and-a-half times dearness allowance without ceiling, was offered to the STF personnel.

The perks alone cost the Government, already reeling under a financial crisis, over Rs. 9 crores in the last one and a half years.

And, the price the Government paid for the operation jumped from Rs. 4.41 crores in 2000-2001 to Rs. 15.94 crores during 2001-2002. In the last four months alone, it spent Rs. 8.50 crores on the search.

This apart, the STF drew Rs. 76 lakhs from the State Secret Services Fund, which does not come under any audit scrutiny at all.

The 10-year hunt for Veerappan is believed to have cost Tamil Nadu over Rs. 70 crores, of which more than one-third was spent in the last 15 months. The search continues, so does the drain on the State exchequer.

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