GUWAHATI, Jan 22 � The fight against human trafficking in Assam received a major boost with the Government of India for the first time deciding to provide financial support to the anti-trafficking unit of the State police to carry out rescue operations in and outside the State.
An allocation had already been made from the non-plan budget of the Government of India a few days back, official sources told The Assam Tribune.
The Union Ministry has meanwhile asked the Criminal Investigation Department (CID/anti-trafficking unit) to submit a list of rescue operations done in the last few years with the names of those rescued to study the trend and draft a road map.
It is learnt that the Union Ministry is also creating a corpus fund for the trafficking unit of Assam Police, besides a few other source states.
Assam Police has been raising the matter with the Ministry of Home Affairs and even wrote to the Centre to support the rescue operations with financial assistance in the recent past.
The State anti-trafficking unit has asked for an allocation of Rs 5 lakh for each district of the State from the planned budget every year.
Sources said that rescue operations by the anti-trafficking unit had to suffer from time to time due to non-allocation of funds earmarked to bear the cost incurred while carrying out search operations.
Till date, only the Social Welfare department has been allocated funds for carrying out rescue operations and that too only for minor victims. The expenses incurred by rescue teams especially adults, were never met.
Superintendent of Police (anti-trafficking unit) of CID Violet Baruah confirmed the development stating that the decision will boost the morale of the anti-trafficking unit.
She informed that it was getting difficult to manage food, transport and lodging for the police team as well as those rescued from different parts of the country.
�I had raised the issue on behalf of the anti-trafficking unit at a recent meeting of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Assam being one of the source states with high incidence of human trafficking cases, it is a welcome move. Already, an amount of Rs 1.75 lakh has been released and we expect that the Centre would approve an annual fund of Rs 5 lakh for each district� Baruah said.
