The government is making all out efforts to ensure that families of troops killed in the line of duty are provided a compensation of not less than Rs 1 crore, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Sunday.
Singh declared this after inaugurating a new government website, along with actor Akshay Kumar, that will allow common people to make monetary donations to families of paramilitary troops killed in action, with an upper limit of Rs 15 lakh to a single family.
Singh said this during the ceremony which also marked the annual 'Valour Day' event of the CRPF. He added:
It has been our constant effort to ensure that a family of a martyr who is killed in action does not get a compensation amount less than a crore... I have said that I am even ready to spread my hands and seek funds from my countrymen in this regard.
Attempt to Fill the Gap
The Home Minister added some state governments also provide such funds to families of slain troops, but still some "gap" remains and their effort is to fill up these.
The Minister added the country will remain indebted to its soldiers forever and that their welfare is his "top priority", as he lauded the men and women of paramilitary forces deployed for operations in some of the areas in the country with extreme living conditions.
As per present compensation norms, the family of a slain soldier of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) like CRPF, BSF, ITBP, CISF, SSB, NSG and Assam Rifles gets about Rs 50-60 lakh and the “gap” the Minister talked about ranges between Rs 40-50 lakh before they get the Rs one crore compensation.
Launch of www.bharatkeveer.gov.in
The website, www.bharatkeveer.gov.in, is a step in this direction and has been launched after Akshay Kumar met Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi about two months back with a proposal in this regard.
Kumar said his idea of getting a website made was to engage the entire 125 crore population of the country with the personnel in uniform so that anyone could contribute and feel proud by helping the families of such troops.
Calling himself the "son of an army man" and not an actor in the event, Kumar said he hit upon the idea when he saw a documentary where it was described that terror elements motivate people to join them and undertake violence in lieu of promise of "good money" to their families.
Rajnath complimented Kumar for winning the National award for best actor recently and called him 'action Kumar' for doing heroic deeds in not only his films, but also in real life too.
Talking about the sense of duty of a CAPF personnel, Singh said:
I am sure the situation in Kashmir will improve.
The Minister added there has been a dip of about 45-50 percent in violent incidents in the Left Wing extremism-hit areas and about 70-75 percent in the insurgency affected areas of the North East.
The new website inaugurated provides details of CAPFs personnel killed in the last one year with their name, age, incident where they made the supreme sacrifice, the name of dependent family members.
Any amount of payment up to Rs 15 lakh can be made either through a debit/credit card or net banking facility by the donor.
The portal is powered by country’s largest lending bank SBI and will be maintained by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
The contributor will also be acknowledged about his or her donation by an auto-generated website certificate issued under the seal of the Home Ministry.
Donation of More Than 15 Lakh Also Allowed
Kumar had recently donated Rs 9 lakh each to the families of 12 CRPF personnel who were killed in a Naxal ambush in Chhattisgarh's Sukma on 11 March.
Few days later, badminton player and Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal had made a similar contribution and donated Rs 50,000 each to these families of the CRPF men.
The CAPFs are not only deployed for guarding Indian borders, but they also render a variety of internal security tasks including tackling the Naxal menace in Left Wing Extremism-hit states.
In case someone wants to make a donation of more than Rs 15 lakh, they can also deposit in the corpus created in this regard by logging on to the website, an official said.
Observance of ‘Valour Day’
During the event, the Home Minister also decorated gallantry medal winners of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and gave away special mementos to two veteran CAPF soldiers, 93-year-old Head Constable Baljit Singh who took on the Chinese forces in 1959 at Hot Springs in Ladakh and BSF Commandant BS Tyagi for his brave exploits in 1971 Indo-Pak war in Assam's Killa Para.
He also praised CRPF Commandant Chetan Cheeta who recently recuperated from a near death condition and was in hospital for close to two months after he was hit by nine bullets during an operation in the Kashmir valley.
Singh said a bullet can hit a soldier physically, but no bullet can defeat the courage and motivation of a soldier.
The CRPF, with about 3 lakh personnel, remembers its martyrs by observing 'Valour Day' on 9 April every year.
History of the Day
The history of the Day dates back to the the intervening night of 8-9 April (1965), when 3,500 men of 51st Infantry Brigade of Pakistan stealthily launched simultaneous assault on the Sardar and Tak Posts in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat under an operation codenamed "Desert Hawk".
The fight lasted 12 hours during which the enemy made three attempts to overrun the post, but was repulsed with heavy casualties by some daredevil action by the CRPF men, tasked to secure the post.
The retaliation by the CRPF men saw the numerically and armament superior Pakistan retreating the areas and leaving behind 34 bodies of their soldiers including two officers.
Four Pakistani soldiers were taken as hostages while six CRPF men made the supreme sacrifice and the post was saved.
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