Karnataka police revive duty meets to infuse professionalism

BENGALURU: Declining professionalism and quality in policing has the state topbrass worried, forcing them to revive an abandoned practice: state, range and district-level police duty meets.
Competitions in various tasks like security arrangements, looking for clues in a crime scene, cracking a crime, collecting evidence, anti-sabotage checks, and use of sniffer dogs are held for the rank and file of the force --- beginning from constables to inspectors --- during such meets.
Karnataka police, which is hosting the 60th National Police Duty Meet in December, is holding district and range-level meets, climaxing with a state-level meet in September.
National police duty meets are organized every year by the All India Sports Control Board under the Bureau of Police Research and Development, ministry of home affairs. Karnataka police is going through the elaborate build-up for the event instead of nominating officers to participate in the meet.
It's been over 20 years since a state-level police duty meet was held. A district-level meet was held about 15 years ago.
"It was proposed to revive the practice of police duty meets to increase professionalism in the department," said Bhaskar Rao, ADGP (crimes and technical services). "Most officers have lost touch with police work. Many do not even know how to depose before the court. The quality has plummeted and investigating officers depend on constables for regular police work. Police duty meets are an opportunity to provide professional education to the force," he said.
According to him, the impact of the competition may not be visible immediately, but in the long term it will help train police officers and ensure that their knowledge is continuously updated. "This is crucial, considering that police officers who joined the department in 2016 would continue to work there till at least 2050. The basic training they receive in the police academy has to be updated over a regular period of time with more than just refresher courses," he said.
The idea is also to bring police officers at par with those in other states and identify talents.
While the district-level police meets are over, they have been completed in the southern, north eastern and Bellary ranges. The meet in Davanagere range has been stalled due to Kalasa Bhanduri protests and this has also delayed the Mangaluru range meet.
National police meet
The national police duty meet sees participation of different police organizations such as ITBP, BSF, RPF, CRPF, besides state police forces.
Last year, the 59th National Police meet was held at Panchakula in Haryana. About 70 officers from Karnataka had participated in the meet and won in the computer awareness dog squad competitions. Karnataka had last hosted the national police duty meet in 2009.
The 60th police meet will be held in Karnataka. The department is yet to finalize the venue, though Bengaluru and Mysuru are contenders to host the event. Over 1,200 officers are likely to participate in the event, which is scheduled to be held between December 19-23. The competition will be partly funded by the BPR&D (Rs 24 lakh). and the state police department, who are also speaking to SBI, Toyoto, MSIL, and others to sponsor the event.
May hike reward money too
Officers from the rank of constable to inspector participate in competitions under various categories such as scientific aids to investigation, police photography, computer awareness, videography, anti-sabotage checks. Police dogs are tested for their ability in identifying explosives and narcotics, besides tracking.
Senior officials admitted that more needs to be done to motivate officers to participate in duty meets. Karnataka police is contemplating increasing reward money given to its officers/teams who figure among winners in the national meet. "While Tamil Nadu provides a reward of Rs 5 lakh for winning a gold in the competition and Telangana Rs 3 lakh, our officers get a meagre amount of a few thousand rupees," an officer said.