“An instruction to this effect was conveyed to all district police orally on Saturday night,” an official from the State Police headquarters said on Sunday. The new system is for entire Tamil Nadu except Chennai.

“The idea is to give much needed rest to the police personnel who are bearing the brunt of the second wave in the form of a high number of fatalities. This will ensure they will get one day’s rest every five days,” the officer pointed out.

For instance, if a police station has 50 personnel, 10 of them will be rested on day 1 while the rest will be rested on a rotation basis.

The first batch will again get rest on the sixth day. The rest-day is applicable with no age consideration for personnel attached to Law and Order and AR wings.

The State police had already issued orders asking unit officers not to deploy police personnel above a certain age for COVID related duties.

In Chennai city police, the work-day is split into three shifts. After one one batch completes 8-hour duty, they will get 16 hours of rest. Besides, teams engaged in hospital duty are given one week’s rest after a week’s work at hospitals, a senior police officer said.