'A cop catches up on latest laws once in 18 years'

New Delhi: A policeman usually gets to brush up his knowledge on latest laws and rules only once in 18 years owing to gaps in holding training sessions, the BPRD chief said today.

The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD), under the Home Ministry, is the national nodal department to work upon and improve issues related to policing.

"Of late we realised that here is a huge gap in training," BPRD Director General (DG) Meeran C Borwankar said while speaking at an event on police training here.

Data on police oragnisations published by the bureau shows that in 2015 about 73,000 police officials were recruited across the country, but only 57,000 could be given training.

"So, there is a gap of basic training not being given to about 16,000 police persons we recruit. The data also shows that (out of) the 22 lakh strong police force, we could give in-service training to only about 1.4 lakh police persons which means I would be trained about the latest laws, rules and regulations once in about 18 years," Borwankar said.

The BPRD has convened a two-day national symposium of heads of police training institutions with the theme 'Promoting E-Learning for Police Training'.

The DG said that in view of these challenges, the bureau holds these annual symposiums and encouarges states to "fill in the gap in the basic training, in-service training and to improve the quality of training."

She said lifting up the spirits of police trainers is a major challenge.

"As per quality, they say, the training in police contains the slack, toughens the body and polishes the spirit. Are we really polishing the spirit? Do we have the capability to do so? So, we have the infrastructure...Yes we do tighten the slacks, toughen the bodies but the spirit polishing is a big question mark," Borwankar said, adding e-learning is a potent tool to fill this gap.

The conference, with participants being training heads and trainers of state and central police forces, will deliberate about these issues and challenges, improve methodology, syallbus and work to ensure that "excellence is not a random act but a habit" for the policemen, the DG said.

During the event, BPRD Director (Training)  Sundari Nanda said the aim of better training to policemen is to ensure that the society can have a "well-trained, well spoken and well turned out" man in uniform when he is on job and that the gaps in "standard of services" is reduced and subsequently eliminated.