The home minister P Chidambaram today said that the Central Reserve Police Force should have its own intelligence cell.

Speaking at the inauguration of the first ever Intelligence training School for CRPF personnel at Kadarpur in Gurgaon, the Home Minister said that the role of CRPF has significantly changed from maintaining law and order to counter-insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, Left Wing Activism affected districts and in North Eastern States.

Mr. Chidambaram said that the CRPF, a key force in anti-Naxal operations, will have to acquire an intelligence based strategy to combat Maoists who have organised themselves as a regular fighting army. Terming the school as a milestone in CRPF's history, he said that though Intelligence collection is the task of IB and state police, the Intelligence set up of CRPF is designated to collect specific intelligence within the ambit of CRPF’s role like Counter Insurgency and naxalism.

The Director General of CRPF, K.Vijay Kumar said that with the establishment of CRPF Intelligence School, the Force will now have its own integrated intelligence set up right from the Directorate to the Unit level.

The Director General said that besides training the trainers, the CRPF is planning to conduct various training programmes for officers. The Faculty from BSF, IB, R&AW, Military Intelligence and CBI will train the personnel.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has sanctioned 468 posts for the Intelligence set up from Commandant to Constable. The spokesperson of CRPF, BC Khanduri, said that the CRPF has already appointed one retired IG of BSF as Consultant, Intelligence, to head the Intelligence set up and streamline it.