Policing during the pandemic has underscored the need for soft skills to ensure better law and order in the country. Analyse (200 Words)
Refer - The Indian Express
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 4 years
KEY POINTS
· The National Policy on Disaster Management (NPDM) 2009 describes the police as the “first and key responders” in a disaster.
· They have gone beyond the call of duty — supplying vegetables and groceries to people in containment zones and arranging food and transport for migrant labour on the move. They have protected healthcare workers and ensured the seamless movement of transport and logistics for essential commodities.
· More importantly, the police force has been working under life-threatening conditions, since many of them do not have access to personal protection equipment (PPE).
· The pandemic has taught several valuable lessons. The police needs to better appreciate its role as the first responder in emergencies and consciously adopt disaster management — including disaster risk reduction activities — as one of its primary functions.
· The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and SDRFs in some states do have an essential role. But these agencies have their limitations. Therefore, building the ground-level capacity of the police and sister agencies like fire safety authorities is critical to their functioning as the first responder.
· Community policing practices are used in mitigating communal tensions, in dealing with left-wing extremism and urban policing. But these are often localised ad-hoc initiatives. It’s time to integrate community policing into the police’s organisational ethos. Training academies should devote more time to this subject.
· Community policing will be much needed in the coming months, when conflicts at family or village level and petty crimes are likely to come up as social aftershocks of COVID-19. Involving an alert community in the task will help the force.
