CRPF to soften training regime for 21,000 fresh hires?

New Delhi: Concerned over its fresh recruits suffering injuries which have a lifelong impact, the CRPF has decided to "redesign" its old physical training regime to prepare tougher and agile soldiers who have to render hard duties in states hit by Naxal violence and militancy, the forces' chief has said.

The over three-lakh personnel strong force is one of the biggest recruiters of young personnel in the ranks of constabulary and officers in the Assistant Commandant (AC) ranks and thousands of cadets get trained in its various academies round the year. 

The decision assumes significance as the government a few months back had announced a mega recruitment drive in the constabulary ranks of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) like the CRPF, BSF and ITBP, with a hiring of a total 54,953 personnel. 

Out of these, the maximum at 21,566, will be recruited by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).  

CRPF Director General (DG) R R Bhatnagar told PTI after witnessing a "substantial" number of personnel getting injured during the recruit training courses, the paramilitary force has decided to change the old training module. 

"We saw that during basic training, a number of personnel were suffering hair line fractures or other forms of fractures. 

Hence, we are re-designing the whole physical training regime. The new training modules will ensure that converting a young man into a tough trooper is done slowly and with due diligence. 

We have also revised our physical training regime," the DG told the news agency. 

Bhatnagar said a team of experts was working to see as to what all could be done so that there is no "permanent effect" of an injury on a recruit. 

"Some boys have become unfit for life while some have suffered bad injuries like on the head and others. 

"We are trying to see that jawans feel confident during their training days and are motivated to come out as the best from their training centres," he said. 

The aim to prepare strong, agile and healthy troops for the CRPF which is deployed as the lead counter-insurgency and internal security protection force in the country, he said. 

"We are making scientific changes in the training regime so that can pace him (a newly recruited personnel) better. 

We will now gauge the strengths and weaknesses of every person and treat them accordingly so that they do not suffer lifelong injuries and even if they do so, the injury is minimal," the CRPF chief said. 

A senior official said while the physical exercises, combat drills and commando obstacle courses administered to recruits will be more or less the same, their intensity and application will be tweaked in the force now on as part of this change. 

The force, which traces its roots as the Crown Representative Police (CRP) in 1939 under the British, is deployed as the lead force in three major combat theatres of the country-- the Left-Wing Extremism-hit states, for anti-militancy operations in Jammu and Kashmir and counter-insurgency in the North East.