Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced on Thursday that a police mission would be set up to give the police force a 'new outlook' and a 'new sense of purpose' for effective maintenance of internal security and facing challenges of the next century.
"The mission should be charged with the responsibility of creating a new vision for the police. It could decide on a proper time-frame in which to accomplish this task," he said, addressing the annual confernce of director and inspector generals of police of states and union territories and heads of central police organisations here.
Observing that the mission would need to pay special attention to empowering the police force at all levels, Dr Singh said it would deal with appropriate decentralisation and delegation of powers, enhancing the skills and competency levels at the grassroots.
It would promote culture of excellence in police organistations, enhance accountability to the people, meet new challenges such as asymmetric warfare, new trends in urban unrest and disorder and new forms of social unrest, he told the conference organised by the Intelligence Bureau.
Contending that two most improtant threats were from terrorism and organised crime, Singh said, "There is no question of any compromise with terror anywhere, be it Jammu and Kashmir or any other part of our nation".
Noting that the problem of naxalism could not be solved by police action alone, he said "While we do need sustained and effective police action, we have to accelerate socio-economic development of naxal-affected areas."
