Coastal police hiring youths from fishermen community

Thiruvananthapuram: Of late, state police have been trying to ensure its efficiency by recruiting people with expert domain knowledge from various sectors. After recruiting members from tribal community, police have now recruited nearly 200 youngsters from the fishermen community for strengthening its coastal wing.
The idea arose two years ago when regular policemen faced practical difficulties during sea operations. It took shape after going through a maze of governmental red-tape. On Thursday, the final interview of shortlisted candidates, after they went through a series of water-based tests, was held. Now, as many as 180 candidates have been short-listed. “The idea is to use them in search and rescue operations at sea,” said state police chief Loknath Behera.

Sources in coastal police division said 3,000 candidates had applied for 200 vacancies, for which the basic educational qualification was SSLC. “They underwent intensive water-based physical tests. This was in addition to the regular seven physical tests of which they had to clear a minimum of five,” said a top officer dealing with the division.

The water-based tests included 300m freestyle swimming, swimming for 50m by carrying a person on ones back, floating test in which a candidate had to stay afloat for a minimum prescribed time holding a weight of 5kg with both hands and swimming 100m at sea against the tide.

Selected candidates will be distributed among the 18 coastal police stations in state. They will be christened as coastal wardens, and will be appointed on a contract basis for one year. “We are working on a formula, on the basis of which, they will continue to work for five years and after which selected members will be permanently inducted,” said Behera. The coastal police division has 645 personnel, who are assigned from the regular police. “We have asked the government to make coastal police a separate division like other states,” he said.

Coastal police, which forms the third layer of defence after Navy and Coast Guard, has a jurisdiction of 12 nautical miles off the coast. All coastal police stations undertake five hours of patrolling every day, using 23 low-weight, highly-manoeuvrable interceptor boats provided by the ministry of home affairs.

The units have already set up their own intelligence network (Kadalora Jagratha Samitis) by including fishermen community. The community has immense potential to identify unusual visitors at sea. This idea led to the formation of such networks after the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008. State police had earlier recruited 72 youths from tribal communities as part of the force.