20% of policemen do not receive even basic training

The average policeman in India gets to brush up his knowledge of latest laws and rules only once in 18 years owing to gaps in holding training sessions, informed Meeran C Borwankar, Director General(DG) of the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) in New Delhi on Thursday.

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," she 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 personnel 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 added.

"As per quality, they say, the training in police contains the slack, toughens the body and polishes the spirit,” she recalled and went on to do some plain speaking. “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.