Five-day training programme for the tourist police who have been assigned Char Dham Yatra duty began at police lines in Dehradun on Wednesday. State director general of police (DGP) Anil K Raturi inaugurated the training programme and said that to ensure that the char dham yatra is completed without a glitch, a total of 122 police personnel who have been appointed as tourist police would undergo the five- day training programme before they are deployed for the important duties. Notably,92 police personnel- 83 men and nine women- have been selected to function as tourist police from Garhwal range while 30-23 men and seven women-have been picked up from Kumaon region for the same.
The state police chief said that the objective of this training programme was to enhance the skills of police personnel to be sent on the important pilgrimage assignments. “ They would be thoroughly trained on how to provide preliminary treatment to the pilgrims/ tourists aside from being trained on developing skills in soft speaking and in speaking in English. Besides, they would act as moving information banks about tourism,” he said. Raturi further said that tourist police should have detailedinformation about facilities being given to pilgrims by the police department as well as information about tourist destinationsspread along the char dham yatra routes. “They must behave politely with the pilgrims so that the latter feel at home while on the pilgrimage in the state. I am sure that the police personnel who are being imparted training here would help the pilgrims as per instructions given to them during the training. If this happens it would go a long way in endearing the people across the world to the state as well as the police force,” the DGP said.
State additional director general of police (law and order) Ashok Kumar said that all the necessary materials would be provided to the tourist police and all the possible important information and modules for enhancing skills have been included in the training progamme to enhance their skills during the five- day training progremme. “The ongoing training would result in churning out better police personnel who would be sensitive to the interests of the pilgrims/tourists while making the image of the state police brighter,” he added.
Others present on the occasion were IG (law and order) Deepam Seth, DIG Pushpak Jyoti and SSP Nivedita Kukreti.