The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has enhanced the honorarium of Special Police Officers (SPOs) of Jammu and Kashmir to Rs 6000 per month from Rs 3000 per month. The honorarium is given by the State Government and reimbursed by the Central Government under the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) scheme.
The Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh has constituted a committee for assessing the performance, utility and efficacy of the SPOs. The committee is chaired by JS (J&K), MHA and others members of the committee include representatives of DGP, J&K, Principal Secretary (Home), J&K and IFD (MHA).
The enhancement of honorarium will come into effect from today subject to following conditions:
The MHA to introduce different grades for payment of honorarium not exceeding Rs 6000 per month. Honorarium will be paid in such graded manner i.e., SPO’s having longer experience, higher skills and performing harsh duties getting more honorarium than SPOs having less experience, skills and performing soft duties.
The enhanced honorarium will be given for two financial years i.e., 2015-16 and 2016-17 with effect from today or till validity of SRE scheme whichever is earlier. During this period MHA will review the eligibility conditions, performance and fitness of SPOs and only those SPOs who are really useful in dealing with the separatist forces/insurgency in the State will be retained.
The MHA to carry out a mid-term review of SRE scheme and come out with comprehensive SRE scheme for J&K inter-alia containing the mechanism for carrying out review of existing SPOs and analysing further requirement and advertising the process/recruitment of SPOs.