Imphal, January 02 2008: THE UNION ministry of home affairs (MHA) has finally agreed to the raising of the two commando companies as Special Task Force with a maximum reimbursement of Rs.6 cores per battalion, a long pending request of the Manipur government on converting one of the Indian Reserved Battalions into a commando battalion for effective counter insurgency operation in the state.

Meanwhile, a strong team of state police personnel have left Imphal on December 29 for collecting a huge quantities of ammunitions and arms accessories totaling to 10,14,086 from different factories located in Tamil Nadu, Medhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Manipur government has been urging the Centre to allow conversion of one of the IR Bns proposed to be raising in the state newly with the Centre's financial assistant into commando battalion citing the need for placing the police commandos under a command and effective assistant to the Central Security Forces in dealing with the counter insurgency operation.

State home department for the first time put up the demand for setting up commando battalion in the early part of the 2007 after the Cabinet of the O Ibobi Singh led SPF government approved to raising of the 7th IRB sanctioned by the MHA as commando battalion with certain modification to the post nomenclature.

But the same was turned down by the MHA.

State government once again submitted the proposal of raising a commando battalion after getting a green signal from the MHA in the middle part of the year 2008 .

Official source here said Friday that state chief secretary received a communiqu� dispatched from the MHA dated December 5, 2008 conveying that President has sanctioned additional assistant of Rs 3 crore per company for raising of commando companies "sizeable segment as Special Task Force.

The communiqu� further advised the state government to ensure raising of at least two commandos companies as Special Task Force stating that Centre will reimburse a maximum of Rs.6 core per battalion while raising the two companies.

"The state government would also provide specialized arms and ammunitions, communication equipments, special equipments to these commandos and seek additional reimbursement against these equipments from the government of India with utilization certificate from respective accountant general (AG)," the communiqu� conveying the presidential sanction of additional funds to the state government for the purpose stated.

It further asked to put up the list of equipments being finalized in consultation with the Nodal Agencies and communicated in due course.

On the other hand, a strong team of 71 personnel collected from different units of the IRBns, MR, district police and other units of the state police left Imphal on December 29 for collecting ammunitions and arm accessories totaling to 10,14,086 Ordnance Factories located at Tiruchirappali (Tamil Nadu) and Khamaria, Jabalpur (MP) and Varanggoan and Medak (Maharastra).

The items to be collected and transported to the state includes 1512 numbers of Rifle 7.62 mm IAI SLR and equal number of Rifle 7.62mm CES items sets, 13470 sets of magazines (Magazine 2A for SLR), 72828 cartridges of 9mm ball, 4944 cartridge of 7.62mm HD, 3708 each of grenade rifles 36 M HE and detonators 7 sec delay, 48 equipments of 51 mm mortar E-1 with 5 CES items, 299135 cartridge of SA A7 Mark-II, 435286 cartridge of 7.62mm CTN and 15 numbers of tubeless tyre.

The items are to be procured by the state police under the modernization of police, a Centre sponsored scheme implementing in the state.

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