Mumbai Police Launch Special Fitness Programme For Personnel To Fight COVID

The Mumbai police launched a special fitness programme for its personnel which requires each person to undergo one-on-one counselling sessions with the nutrition experts. The Mumbai police lost as many as 122 personnel to COVID-19 in the past 1.5 years. The diet and fitness programme will be provided to the personnel considering the seriousness of co-morbidity and the improvement in the health will be monitored and analysed every three months, reported The Indian Express.

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The programme began on July 19 and the first set of 100 personnel was selected for the counselling session. In 2020, the Mumbai police lost 99 personnel and this year, until now, as many as 23 have died due to COVID.

Rajkumar Vhatkar, Joint Commissioner of Police (Admin), told the newspaper, "As many as 95 per cent of the police personnel who succumbed to COVID had co-morbidity. The department realised that these personnel forget to take care of themselves during the day-to-day activities. So we wanted somebody to monitor and advice them for necessary changes in their diet in order to stay fit and healthy."

The personnel have to undergo regular medical check-up during the session and have to follow suggestions provided to maintain their diet, said an officer.

According to the report, the Mumbai police will pay ₹ 3,000 to each personnel from its welfare funds.

Darade said the mission is to have an active and fit force and to inculcate healthy habits among the personnel. "We often see that they eat vada pav, samosa and other fried food items. We will encourage them to eat nutrient-rich diet and homemade food as much as possible," said an officer.

In 2019, an internal survey by the Mumbai Police found that around 8 per cent of the 40,000-strong force is overweight. It then launched a fitness programme to get its personnel into shape.

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