The government decision to increase the ration allowance by 15 per cent has been implemented in Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force (APF) Nepal from the beginning of new fiscal year.
Through the budget speech, the government had increased the ration allowance of both the security bodies by 15 per cent.
The ration allowance in both the security bodies had not been increased since January 2016. Both the organisations had proposed a 40 per cent increase in ration allowance to the Home Ministry. However, the government has increased it by only 15 per cent, according to Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Basanta Bahadur Kunwar of Nepal Police.
The government had decided to provide ration allowance along with regular salary to both groups of police personnel from 2016. Before this, Headquarters and concerned units themselves used to buy rations and feed them.
There is variation while providing ration allowance as per the working stations and geographical terrain, SSP Kunwar said.
The police personnel working in Upper Humla region will get the highest ration allowance. The police working there will now get a daily allowance of Rs. 864. With the increased ration allowance, they will now get Rs. 25,920 ration allowance except for their regular salary. Before this, they were getting a ration allowance of Rs. 751 daily.
As food, especially rice, is expensive in Upper Humla, ration allowance has thus been fixed accordingly, he said.
“Policemen working in districts where food including rice is cheaper get less and police working in districts where it is more expensive get more,” SSP Kunwar said.
Police personnel working in Jhapa, Morang, Sunsari, Siraha, Saptari and Rupandehi will get a minimum daily ration allowance of Rs. 181. Police working in these districts were being paid Rs. 157 ration allowance till now.
Similarly, the police working in three districts of the Kathmandu Valley had been receiving a ration allowance of Rs. 175 daily till last fiscal year. Now their allowance has been increased to Rs. 201.
With the increase in the ration allowance, the liability of the ration allowance of the government has reached Rs. 98 billion annually.
The present total strength in Nepal Police is 79,537 while, and it is about 37,000 in the APF.
Nepal Police and APF had begun the trend of distributing ration allowance in cash only after 2016 after many report of irregularities were made public while directly distributing rice by their concerned office chief in their respective units.
Source : TRN,
