New Delhi: In 2016, then Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh stood up in Lok Sabha and admitted that rising cases of suicides among police personnel were concerning. A discussion in the Lok Sabha had identified that lack of houses for the police was a major reason for mental stress and suicides. Rajnath promised to look into it.

He said, “As far as the police personnel are concerned, it is true that the housing level is not satisfactory. I feel that the housing level satisfaction needs to be improved and Union government is considering on this issue very seriously.”

But did he uphold his assurance to Parliament?

Our investigation found the Union Ministry of Home Affairs quietly backed away from the key promise made by its then Home Minister Rajnath Singh to prevent suicides among police personnel, a sensitive issue linked to national security. Over the years, the Narendra Modi government continued to pin the blame on the state governments for poor police housing conditions while it halted central funding for police housing.

Though Parliament has an elaborate process to hold the government accountable for the promises made inside the two Houses, it terribly failed, shows this investigative series.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs not only successfully escaped parliamentary scrutiny for breaking its promise but also overruled all recommendations by a key committee to help states provide better housing to police personnel. 

THE PROBLEM

Rajnath’s assurance came amid a heated discussion in Lok Sabha on suicides among police forces. The Nationalist Congress Party’s Supriya Sule and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s Venkatesh Babu TG asked the Union Ministry of Home Affairs about the number of such suicide cases reported and whether the government had looked into what caused police personnel to end their life.

The data given by the government showed that 614 police personnel across the country had died by suicide between 2012 and 2015. On the reasons for suicide, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs said police was a state subject and therefore it was the state governments’ responsibility to look into it.

But the Union government too hasn’t been a dream employer for personnel in the Central Armed Police Forces, which include Border Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force, Assam Rifles, among others, and the Delhi Police. Data shows that 365 personnel among the central units too had died by suicide between 2013 and 2016. And housing for central police personnel was not any better. 

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs added that it had shared an advisory with state governments on how to tackle the issue. Its suggestions ranged from regulating working hours to setting up yoga and meditation centres to help police personnel de-stress. The evasive response signalled the government’s intention in avoiding the responsibility of providing concrete solutions, and it set off a heated discussion in the Lok Sabha.

The House chair asked BJP MP Satya Pal Singh, a former Mumbai police commissioner, to contribute to the discussion, noting his police experience would be valuable.

Singh pointed out that the biggest factor he thought led to suicides in the forces was abysmal living and working conditions. He said that according to the police manual, each police officer has to be provided accommodation. However, housing levels across states were around 30% to 50%, with some below 10%. This meant that across India most police personnel were deprived of government accommodation on a job that, Singh pointed out, required them to work for up to 14 hours a day.

Singh asked the Union government whether they could ensure states provide 100% accommodation to police personnel. With this, he had crystalised the tone and substance of the discussion.

THE RESPONSE

In response, Rajnath told Parliament :

“As far as police personnel are concerned, it is true that the housing level is not satisfactory. I feel that housing level satisfaction needs to be improved and the Union government is considering on this issue very seriously.”

This sparked a heated exchange between Congress parliamentarian Mallikarjun Kharge and Rajnath. Kharge pointed out that state governments were earlier given funds under the Union government’s Police Modernization Scheme to provide housing for the state’s police personnel, which the Union government had now stopped.

Rajnath responded to Kharge that the Union government does not allocate funds to states for housing. However, he was quickly fact-checked by one of his cabinet colleagues. Raj Kumar Singh, then a Member of Parliament and earlier an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, said on record that the Union government earlier did give states funds for police housing but had stopped the practice.

“I just want to clarify one point. Housing was a component in the police modernisation scheme. The Union government and the state both used to provide funds towards this. Perhaps the Union government has stopped it because  it has increased the states’ share in central taxes,” he said.

He added, “I would appeal to the Home Minister to revive the scheme,” he said, siding with the views of parliamentarians from the opposition. 

Government records confirm Singh’s contention. In the financial year 2015-16, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs did stop funding state governments for housing and other construction projects for the state police force. Two years later, it would begin funding states with insurgencies. But the money spent on the entire police modernisation scheme decreased every year even in these states.

However, Rajnath’s assurance to consider the issue “very seriously” meant the Union government would now actively address police housing levels nationwide, covering both Union and state police forces.

When the parliamentary Committee on Government Assurances – an accountability watchdog - asked the government to inform it about the progress on the matter, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs took a U-turn.

On 26 July 2016, less than three months after Rajnath’s assurance in Lok Sabha, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs asked the committee to drop the assurance altogether. It submitted that since police was a state subject according to the Constitution, the scarcity of housing must be looked into by state governments.

Ministers often make promises under the glare of public scrutiny but they flip when they are made aware of the fiscal cost of their promises. 

To justify its flip, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs first suggested that Rajnath’s statement was not even an assurance to begin with. This was despite using an expression recognised by the Union Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs as an assurance.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs then revealed the truth. It said, “It is not feasible to fulfil the same (assurance).”

Four years passed. The Union government sat on its assurance.

In the March 2020 report the Assurance Committee came back to the assurance. It shot down the Ministry of Home Affairs’ argument as “unacceptable”.

It said, “The contention of the ministry that the reply does not constitute an assurance is unacceptable to the committee. Further, the ministry cannot wash their hands off by stating that police is a state subject.”

The committee directed the Ministry of Home Affairs to coordinate with the Ministry of Finance and ensure sufficient funds are available for police housing. The committee, in its March 2020 report, asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to take the issue “very seriously”.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs was undeterred.

On 20 August 2020, it yet again demanded that the assurance be dropped, arguing that since police is a state subject, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs was not the authority for implementing the assurance.

They bolstered their argument: States had more money now since their share of taxes from the central pool had been raised from 32% to 42% by the Finance Commission in 2015. But the government was well aware of this increase when the Home Minister first promised the Parliament in 2016 to ‘seriously’ look into the police housing crisis. 

But, this time the Ministry of Home Affairs prevailed. In August 2020, the Parliamentary Committee dropped the assurance, four years after Rajnath made the promise.

Police housing, which was identified as one of the leading causes of stress in police, hadn’t changed for the better.

In 2022, the Standing Committee on Home Affairs pulled the government up over poor police housing satisfaction across the country. Data showed that housing available across states for police personnel was less than 50% of what had been authorised on paper. It asked the Union government to financially assist states to provide housing for police personnel.

The Union government replied that such assistance used to be provided nationwide in the past. But it is now available only for states affected by insurgency and Left-Wing Extremism.

The committee was disappointed with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and once again asked it to ensure all state governments are allocated some funds.

In its response in February 2022, the Ministry of Home Affairs played its old argument in a loop: that police housing is the responsibility of state governments. However, the ministry also acknowledged that states are financially constrained in providing for the police, contradicting its earlier claim to the assurances committee that states are fiscally strong due to a revised tax share. This claim was used to reject funding requests for police housing.

Just as it is for state police forces, the housing situation remains dire for central police forces. According to a March 2023 report by the Standing Committee on Home Affairs, the central police forces were living with less than half (47.95%) the housing units promised by the Union government on paper. 

It could be one of the reasons for rising cases of suicides in the central police forces, as both the BJP and opposition parliamentarians had warned. Between 2018 and 2022, 654 personnel from the central armed police forces died by suicide. Recent data on suicide by state police personnel is not publicly available – the Union government does not actively publish such data. 

In public, the BJP government likes to talk big about its credentials on national security. But when it came to walking the talk, they decided to sit out.

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THE OTHER ^BROKEN PROMISES 

Read Part 1 of the Parliament Defied series.