NEW DELHI: The government has approved a 40 per cent hardship and risk allowance for National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel, keeping in mind the tough operations they undertake in the event of natural and man-made calamities, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Saturday.The Home Minister, while speaking at a function here, also announced that the Centre has formed a committee under chairmanship of Director Intelligence Bureau (DIB) to work out a model to ensure mandatory participation of a contingent of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) in national and international sporting eventsShah at the event, while welcoming a 35-member expedition team of the NDRF that recently scaled the 21,625-foot-high Mt Manirang in Himachal Pradesh said, “The government has approved a 40 per cent risk and hardship allowance for the personnel of the contingency force only yesterday. This has been a long pending demand… All the 16,000 personnel of the force will benefit from this.”Officials said this allowance would be granted over and above salaries. The forces, like the National Security Guard (NSG) and the Special Protection Group (SPG), get a 25 per cent hardship allowance given the special charter they have for their duties.This is the second mountaineering expedition undertaken by the NDRF personnel, as the team was flagged off on June 1 from here. Mt Manirang is located along the border of Kinnaur and Spiti districts in Himachal Pradesh.Moreover, stressing on the need to make sports a “culture” for the various CAPFs and special organisations like the NDRF, Shah said, it has been decided that at least one team from these forces would mandatorily participate in international and national sporting events.“A committee under the chairmanship of the DIB has been constituted and a roadmap has been prepared. We will soon present a new model,” Shah said.The Home Minister during his speech also underlined that forces like the NDRF should ensure the policy of “zero casualty” in dealing with all kinds of disasters. “We have come a long way… the government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been working on the concept of zero casualties during disasters for the last 10 years,” he noted.Outlining the details of the funds provided to the contingency force, Shah said, the government has allocated higher funds for capacity building and training of the NDRF and state disaster response forces by allocating Rs 2 lakh crore during 2014-24 as compared to Rs 66,000 crore during 2004-14.
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