7 Jan : Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal on Tuesday asked the Centre to introduce photo identity cards for Tibetans and people of Nepalese origin and also sanction a battalion of the National Security Guards (NSG) for the hill state.
Addressing the Chief Minister’s Conference on Internal Security organised by the Home Ministry, Dhumal said his state was home to 23,000 Tibetans and 25,000 Nepalese and pleaded for a mechanism to do some identity checks on them.
"The State Criminal Investigation Department and the Intelligence Department is keeping a strict vigil on their activities. But the Home Ministry and the External Affairs Ministry should introduce a mechanism for security checks," he said.
Pointing out that his state provided comprehensive security to the Tibetan government-in-exile and the Tibetan spiritual guru Karmapa, Dhumal requested the Central government to fully reimburse the expenditure incurred by his government for the purpose.
Himachal Pradesh shares a 1,100-km-long porous interstate borders with Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana and Uttarakhand, and over 200-km-long international border with China, he said.
"Five companies of the Himachal Police Force is deployed in Chamba district along the borders with Jammu and Kashmir to maintain law and order and peace in the region," he said.
He told the conference that the state government was spending around Rs 12 crore annually on security, while the Central government provided only Rs four crore as assistance.