Law & order situation 'good' : Karnataka CM

BANGALORE: Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar today said the law and order situation in the state had remained "good" after BJP came to power

Lauding the police force for maintaining law and order in the state in general and during agitations like the recent Cauvery agitation in particular, Shettar said police had also been able to effectively curb terror activities in the state.

He said his government had taken a number of steps to streamline the functioning of the department, establishing new police stations including traffic police stations, providing basic facilities to the police personnel, setting up a police commissionerate in Belgaum besides sanctioning 1,000 new police vehicles for Hubli-Dharwad Commissionerate.

Inaugurating the new office building of the City Police Commissioner (COP), he said his government had allocated Rs 3,849 crore to the Home department in this year's budget.

Home Minister R Ashoka said a long standing demand of Bangalore police was fulfilled with the unveiling of the new building of the COP.

"The focus has been on cyber crime, narcotics, changes in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), law and order and curbing terror activities", he said.

Bangalore which has three traffic police stations will have more such stations in the days to come.

In view of paucity of police personnel, a budgetary provision has been to recruit 8,000 police personnel this year, Ashoka said.

He said the over a century old COP building will be retained as a heritage building and requested Shettar to convert it into a Police Museum.

Deputy Chief Minister K S Eswarappa and former minister Ramachandra Gowda were also present.