MHA Makes Sports Participation Mandatory For All Ranks Of CRPF Personnel

The initiative is a part of the Home Ministry’s strategy to keep the personnel of the country's largest paramilitary force fit and healthy.

New Delhi:To keep jawans and officials of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) fit, the Home Ministry has mandated all personnel of the force, irrespective of their age to participate in any form of sports. The initiative, according to a senior CRPF official, will keep the personnel fit and healthy. In fact, Home Minister Amit Shah during a recent meeting with the top officials of the CRPF, gave the directions to chalk out a strategy so that the junior and senior level officials keep participating in any two forms of sports.

Following the directives, the country’s largest paramilitary force with over 3.25 lakh personnel is working on the strategy to implement the initiatives. “Apart from keeping themselves fit, the officials can also represent CRPF in national and international sports competitions,” the official told ETV Bharat here on Monday.

As decided, videography and photography will be conducted for the officials participating in the sports and games. "There will be morning marking/PT sessions as well as evening sports, where all officials, regardless of their age or rank, will take part," the official stated.

Instructions have also been issued to identify different forms of sports for different age categories. Directives have also been issued to the sector, range, group centre, battalion and company level of the CRPF for implementation of the initiatives.

“Such an initiative is indeed very much necessary following the fact that CRPF is engaged in maintaining India’s internal security as well as fighting terrorism, insurgency and Naxalites,” the official added.

It is worth mentioning that the CRPF had earlier mooted a proposal to prepare a blueprint if a threshold cut-off age can be fixed after which personnel can be shifted to “relatively static duties” within the organisation or such personnel can be given less-hard duties.

The CRPF, which has over 95 per cent of its strength on active field duty at any given point of time, has been taking the maximum casualties, injuries and diseases as compared to all other Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs). The force was raised in 1939 as the Crown Representatives of Police under the British and was renamed CRPF in 1949.

The CRPF at present comprises 248 battalions that include 203 executive battalions, five VIP security battalions, six mahila battalions, 15 RAF battalions, 10 CoBRA battalions, seven signal battalions and one special duty group.