MARCOS GONSALVES
marcos@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: Goa still waits to see its little boys and girls, carry out the work of the uniformed police force as their little sentinels.
A unique award-winning initiative of the Goa police, to involve children to act as communicators and bridge the gap between citizens and the police; as community police personnel is on hold due to the closure of schools.
This initiative of Goa Police had been honoured with a national award. However, police officials are gearing up to revive the innovation of Goa Police by inculcating other ways and means to take it forward.
Speaking to the Herald few senior police officers of South Goa have hinted at reviving the initiative but with the students not attending the classes physically, a new way of launching this initiative is being planned.
Under the programme ‘Little Police’, an initiative in community policing, the Goa police under the supervision of Sunil Garg, IGP had tried to bridge the gap between the citizens and the police. This was inaugurated by then Chief Minister of Goa Laxmikant Parsekar. Within a year ‘Little Police’ initiative was honoured with Smart Policing Award by FICCI as the Special Jury Award in 2016. A total of 22 states and 3 central paramilitary forces sent in their entries for the award.
Speaking to Herald Pankaj Kumar Singh, SP South said that this was one of the best initiatives of the Goa police. “Yes, all the activities related to this initiative have been badly affected in wake of Covid 19. The schools have been physically closed for the student community”, he stated.
He informed that several programmes were conducted under the ‘Little Police’ in the schools and also at the various police stations. “We are planning to revive the scheme by inculcating some new ideas. Will come out with new concept based on the Little Police in near future”, he informed.
DySP Harish Madkaikar said that ‘Little Police’ had helped society and especially the student community in many ways about shaping the future of young citizens.
“There are plans to adopt phase-wise activities such as ‘Little Cop’ for school students and ‘Young Cop’ for college students. The objective of the initiative was to bridge the gap between police and students, and society as a whole. It includes awareness against social evils like drugs, dowry, child labour, child trafficking, etc besides, to educate traffic rules, laws, security measures, cyber crimes and also to encourage students to become ‘eyes and ears of society. To remove the fear of police in minds of students was also one of the objectives.
“Little Police was a highly appreciated initiative, as students of my schools too had participated in the program under the scheme. We had noticed that students were enjoying and taking a keen interest in knowing policing activities”, said Loureta Fernandes, one of the teachers of Margao city school.
