Vinayakam, Babu and Mohammad Rafiq have a quite a number of things in common. They are police personnel, and all three are of the same rank: They are constables at their respective police stations — Seven Wells (C-3), Elephantgate (C-2)and Esplanade (B-2). They take care of what is termed “Miscellaneous Duties”, which include attending to complaints made by visitors, helping the Station Writer with the record work, visiting local courts with station records and monitoring CCTV footage from the station. They also work within the same Police District — Flower Bazaar.
Since the lockdown began, they got one more thing in common — making the herbal health drink Kabasara Kudineer for their colleagues at the station every day. They were assigned this additional work by their seniors as they are open to multi-tasking.
“They are obedient. They show a lot of care for visitors. Besides, they mostly remain in the station. So, we asked them to do this work,” says S. Lakshmanan, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Flower Bazaar Police District.
Every morning, once they reach the station at 7.30 a.m. their first job is to make the herbal health drink for the team. On an average, each police station has around 80 police personnel, including 20 constables from the Armed Reserve (AR) Wing of the Police Department in each of the three shifts.
The Flower Bazaar Police District has 12 police stations including North Beach, Fort (Fort St. George), High Court, Port Marine, Government Hospital (Stanley) and Kothavalchavadi. Each of these police stations has a station police constable who is tasked with making the herbal health drink twice a day.
With more police personnel getting infected by the novel Coronavirus, it has been made mandatory that they consume the herbal health drink at the station.
In fact, the herbal health drink is also served to the duty police personnel in public places like the market, crowded sections such as Wall Tax Road, Mint Road, Broadway bus terminus and Chennai Central through police patrol vehicles.
The herbal drink is served in non-usable paper cups of 30 ml each. Earlier during the initial weeks of the lockdown, the drink was made at one police station in the district and served to all police personnel across police stations within the Flower Bazaar police district.
However, this process being time-consuming, each station was asked to make the herbal drink on their own and ensure the duty police personnel have them twice a day with a logbook being maintained for the purpose.
