Greater Noida to house country’s first central police varsity

GREATER NOIDA: The country’s first central police university will be set up by the Union home ministry off the Yamuna Expressway in Greater Noida. A ministry brochure said the Centre had given in-principle approval for the varsity and a 100-acre plot has been identified in Sector Techzone for it.
The Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA) confirmed that the land had been allotted to the Centre at a cost of Rs 372 crore. “The allotment letter for the national police university was issued on September 13 after all formalities were completed. We have already received about Rs 37 crore, 10% of the payment for the land, and another 20% is expected within a week. Once we get 30% of the cost of land, we will hand over its possession,” said Narendra Bhooshan, CEO of GNIDA.

The official said GNIDA would provide all necessary support for the university.

According to sources, the proposed university is being billed as one of the top 100 achievements of the ministry in the 100 days of the second Modi government. The land earmarked had earlier been allotted to an IT company. However, the IT firm surrendered it last year, after which it was allotted for the university.

The university will offer undergraduate and post-graduate courses on policing, internal security, cybercrime and forensic sciences. Sources said colleges from various states could be affiliated to this university. The country does not have a central university for police yet, though states like Rajasthan, Gujarat and Jharkhand have dedicated police varsities.

Retired police officers welcomed the move, saying a central university would be beneficial for all ranks in the force, especially in the field of research and development. “Policing is an evolving social science. Social ethos determines the propensity of crime and currently, there is no emphasis on developing such societyoriented investigation and data collection. A central police university will help increase focus on developing skills and knowledge base related to behavioural sciences,” said Sulkhan Singh, former DGP of Uttar Pradesh and former DG (training).

Singh also pointed out that most police training institutes in the country do not have a mandatory psychologist and social scientist for the trainees.

Another retired DGP of Uttar Pradesh, AL Banerjee, said the focus of training needs to shift towards academic research and growth. “For a specialised profession like this, training for policemen is very short in our country. For constables, it is just six months, while it should be at least a year-long with theory as well as field experience,” Banerjee said.

According to Vikram Singh, another retired DGP of the state, policemen are “irrelevant” if they are not trained every five years. “The two-year training for IPS at the National Police Academy is not sufficient. Today, a cop has to be a oneperson army, face-reader, crowd-manager, IT-trained, and with sufficient maturity to understand psychology. They should also understand robotics, drone technology and the ever-evolving forensic and ballistic sciences. Officers must be get specialisation in these by way of PhD and postdoctoral courses,” Singh said.

Noida police chief Vaibhav Krishna also supported the need for such a varsity. “Policing is specialised job, but there is no such training based on research and case studies. It is necessary to have a better knowledge of the field that is based on specific cases, as is done in western countries.”