IB guidelines for disposal of defunct security gadgets

BHUBANESWAR: The intelligence bureau (IB) under the ministry of home affairs has issued guidelines to Odisha police to conduct an audit of the life span of various technical security gadgets. The guidelines include ways to dispose or auction obsolete equipment. Absence of such guidelines had led to a huge cache of defunct gadgets piling up in various police stores in districts and battalions.
The unserviceable gadgets included explosive detectors, deep search metal detectors (DSMD), non-liner junction detectors (NLJD), door frame metal detectors (DMFD), hand held metal detectors (HHMD), dragon search lights, Millipore search kits, electronic stethoscopes and radiation detectors among others. Odisha police have been procuring such technical gadgets since 1984 for use during VIP visits, search operations and other security reasons. But the cops were forced to store many of the defunct gadgets owing to absence of guidelines.

“Our police manual (PM) rules do not have specific guidelines on procedures of disposing the defunct security equipment. The PM rules only have guidelines on how to dispose a select list of materials like defunct vehicles, furniture and electronic gadgets. Since modern security gadgets were introduced much after the PM rules 1940, we were in dark on how to deal with the defunct security gadgets,” a senior police officer told TOI.

Wary of the increasing number of gadgets piling in stores in districts, the police headquarters roped in the IB in November last year, seeking advice. “We received IB guidelines two months ago. The IB has specified life span of nearly 60 security gadgets. We have circulated the guidelines to all range IGs, DIGs and district SPs,” director general of police R P Sharma said.

As per the IB guidelines, the Odisha police has constituted three-member committees in each district and commissionerate police for proper study of the security gadgets. In commissionerate police, either the police commissioner or the additional police commissioner will be chairperson of the committee. In districts, range IGs or DIGs will be chairpersons of the committees. The committees will regularly inspect conditions of the gadgets and identify the obsolete equipment. The defunct gadgets will be auctioned as per the recommendation of the committees. To prevent misuse of security gadgets after auction, the SPs have been asked to dismantle and destroy sensitive parts before the auction process.