An open war of words among senior ranked IPS officers in Kerala is not new. In a fresh row, state DGP TP Senkumar and Transport Commissioner Tomin J Thachenkery are at loggerheads over a complaint given by the DGP to the government against the latter.
On Friday, the DGP gave a complaint against Thanchankary accusing him of not releasing funds from the Road Safety Authority.
In the complaint seeking intervention of the chief minister, home minister and transport minister, it was stated that not non-receipt of funds has badly affected various programmes related to road safety such as ‘Shubha Yatra’ and ‘Decade of Road Safety’.
However, Thachankary has hit back by saying that the Road Safety Authority has decided not to allocate more funds to the police department, as the latter has not yet submitted a report on how the earlier allotted funds were spent.
He said that his department had allocated Rs 5 crore to the police department since 2011, and they have not yet detailed how the amount was utilized.
Thachankary said that the decision to not allot more funds was taken in a meeting chaired by the Transport Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan.
But while replying to the media, Senkumar said that except for some ongoing projects called through tenders, all other fund utilization reports had been submitted by the police department.
With both parties blaming each other, it remains to be seen who will budge, while the issue of road safety gets consigned to the backburner for the time being.