Shimla, 21 August, 2022. The 10 th NCWP was inaugurated by Nityanand Rai, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Home Affairs. The Inaugural Session was held at H.P Raj Bhawan on 21 st August at 12 noon. The main focus of this conference is to address various gender specific issues related to women in police.
While delivering his key-note address, the chief guest highlighted the roles, opportunities
and challenges faced by the women in police. He said that our newly elected President
Her Excellency Droupadi Murmu is a living example that now the country is progressing towards women empowerment. He also said that because of the vision of our Prime Minister Narender Modi, women are getting opportunities in every field of life, be it governance, politics, sports and armed forces etc.
Infrastructure is being created to facilitate women in Police as well as to address the grievances/complaints related to crime against women. The Hon’ble Minister congratulated the Himachal Pradesh Police for organizing this prestigious conference. He also underlined the important role played by police in general and women police in particular in making the society feel safer and secure.
A.R. Anuradha, IPS Pr. Secretary to the Govt of Andhra Pradesh, Manjari Jaruhar, IPS (Retd.), Balaji Shrivastav, Director General, Bureau of Police and Research & Development and Sanjay Kundu, DGP, HP were also present during the inauguration. The inaugural session was followed by the technical sessions which were organized at Hotel Holiday Home. The Technical Sessions revolved around various subjects which inter-alia included gender-friendly designed thinking in police, committees for the prevention of sexual harassment of women at work place and ways of making women police personnel police friendlier.
Satwant Atwal Trivedi, ADGP SV & ACB and ADG Prisons began her session by playing a short film celebrating womanhood in the Himalayas which was liked by all and sundry. She remarked that the infrastructure in Police from uniforms, body-gear washrooms etc. have been designed according to male parameters. Despite having provisions for gender budgeting women officials are deprived of basic gender specific requirements. She emphasised that women in police must speak up their minds.
The second speaker for the session was Anuradha Shankar ADGP Training Madhya
Pradesh. She pointed that colonial methods in terms of infrastructure and uniform still
dominate the Indian Police. She also informed about the innovative women friendly steps
taken up by the Madhya Pradesh Police.
Sonal Chandra IPS of 2008 batch of Tamilnadu Cadre remained the resource person
for the 2 nd session. She enlightened the delegates about the committees for Prevention of
women against sexual harassment at work place. She discussed in detail the issues and
current status of POSH committees, regulation and compliance mechanism of such
committees and the Road ahead for the strengthening of POSH committees in order to
save women against sexual harassment at work places.
The third & the last session for the day was taken by Sangram Singh Nishandar DCP
crime Mumbai and Shyni S IPS, IGP Training, Biju Patnaik State Police Academy
Bhubhneshwar, Odisha. “Have women police personnel made Police friendlier?” was the
topic deliberated upon. The best practices and interventions shared by Sangram
Singh Nishandar like ‘Police Didi’ campaign launched in 2016 has benefitted more than 4
lakh students across Mumbai where Police Didis provide training on topics like sexual
harassment & cyber-crime to young students.
Also Nirbhaya Patrol Mobiles, about 97 in number are equipped to handle women related issues and keeping women in Mumbai safe. The second resource person for the session Shyni S spoke about studies that reflect that for tackling crime against women and children,women are better endowed with traits like patience, empathy, solicitude, tolerance and sacrifice and their sizable numbers in police stations would go a long way in improving the image of police in society, yet a diverse workforce is much more effective, creative, resilient than homogeneous work forces and that teams with broad perspective are better at making decisions and solving problems.
