New Delhi, May 23 : Uttar Pradesh is a ticking time bomb which would explode anytime with the massive spread of terrorists throughout the state, a former Director General of the UP Police has warned.

Speaking at a two-day seminar on "Uttar Pradesh: The Road Ahead" at Observer Research Foundation here today, Prakash Singh, who went on to become the Director General of Border Security Force, said the only way to avoid such a situation was the immediate overhauling of the State Police.

Giving credit to Chief Minister Mayawati for equipping the State to fight terror by passing a POTA-like UP legislation and also destroying the backbone of the once-powerful mafia in the State, Singh hoped she would effectively overhaul the state police force to frustrate terrorist designs.

He said the road ahead was tough with terrorists well spread-out, just waiting for orders from across the border in the east and west to strike at an opportune time.

Criticising the politics of vendetta indulged in by the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Singh said officers were posted not according to merit but with an eye on caste.

"It is a terrible state of affairs. Indicators there (in UP) show that the law and order is worse than that of Sahara African states," he said.

Former Member Secretary of the Planning Commission, Rajiv Shah, suggested that new information technology solutions could be used to reduce corruption and improve delivery systems.

Former Chief Secretary Yogendra Narain explained the various reasons for UP, which was the best administered state at the time of Independence, becoming the worst administered State now. He said wide spread corruption, political instability, instability in bureaucracy and instability of policies were some of the main reasons for pushing UP to the bottom of the table.

He said while UP had 38 chief ministers since Independence, the number of chief secretaries was bigger – 42. He said from 1992 to 1998, each chief minister had transferred an average of 420 officers per year, out of a cadre of nearly 500 officers. He pointed out that a recent World Bank study showed that the average tenure was less than a year.

Narain said with the present Government coming to power on its own after a long gap of coalitions, the Chief Minister has the opportunity to take all the credit if the government improved the law and order and development works. "If it fails, she will have to take all the responsibility," he said.

The suggestions of the seminar will be presented before the wide spectrum of the political leadership tomorrow by former Cabinet Secretary Surendra Singh. Mr. Satish Chandra Mishra (BSP), Mr. Mohan Singh (SP), Mr. Arun Jaitley, Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad (BJP), Mr. Manish Tiwari

(Congress), Ms. Subhashini Ali (CPI-M) and Mr. D. P. Tripathi (NCP) will take part in the final session of the seminar tomorrow afternoon. (ANI)