Next time you visit the Vidhana Soudha, Vikasa Soudha and the Karnataka High Court, don’t be surprised if police personnel guarding those places interact with you wearing a smile on their faces. The 350-odd police personnel guarding the seats of power have been undergoing training for the past five days. Among other things, they were given soft skills training.
The personnel, including those from the city VVIP security, listened to the experts from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), who were resource persons for the training programme.
The initiative of the Police Department was welcomed by many of the personnel who attended the training programme. Speaking to The Hindu, Police Constable V. Divakar said, “Except the regular training before joining the police force, we have not undergone any special training to guard the seats of power. We were just following the instructions of the higher-ups.” Reacting to the training that was imparted to them in the past five days, he said, “Now we have learnt that our mission is to safeguard the structures and the administrative machinery and that we should not be bothered by comments of the visitors and at the same time, we have also learnt how to smile a lot.”
Seconding Mr. Divakar’s opinion, Police Constable Jyothi said that they were never given special training on how to provide security to power installations. But now this training has helped them understand how to draw contingency plans in case of emergency. Besides that they also learnt a lot about interpersonal skills, she added.
S. Srinivas, Head Constable, said working and handling people at a police station and at power centres are totally different. “We can improve a lot by harnessing our professional skills,” he said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Vidhana Soudha Security) S. Lakshman Singh said the training was aimed at imparting the skill of serving the public with a smile. People’s representatives and the general public visit the Vidhana Soudha, Vikasa Soudha and the High Court. It is important that the police personnel learn soft skills so that it helps them serve the people better. Giving details about the trainers from the CISF, he said, “The trainers — CISF Deputy Commandant Tushar D. Sakhare, Inspectors G. Sudhish, M.D. Iqbal and Sub-Inspector R.K. Singh —are experts in explosives investigation, counter insurgency operations, aviation security, crowd control, and soft skills.”
One of the trainers said police personnel were basically into policing and were not experienced in providing security to power installations. Moreover, CISF has emerged as a champion in providing courteous services at installations visited by the public, including airports, and the personnel shared their experience with the police. “While the security system was adequate, the approach needed refinement and we imparted training for that,” the trainer added.
City Police Commissioner Raghavendra H. Auradkar said that they felt that the CISF was the right organisation to offer proper training to the personnel. “We wanted our personnel to learn skills to become more professional and hope that they will bring into practice all those skills that they were imparted during the training,” he added.
The valedictory ceremony of the training programme will be held at the Vidhana Soudha Banquet Hall on Tuesday. Chairperson of the Legislative Council D.H. Shankaramurthy will attend.
