Guwahati: The Assam Police conducted its first-ever Body Mass Index (BMI) tests last week, and the results are in: 97.53% of personnel passed.
Director General of Police (DGP) Gyanendra Pratap Singh announced the results on Twitter, saying that only 1,748 police personnel out of 70,161 failed to meet the standard of a BMI of 30 or below.
“We are grateful to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and the Assam Government for their continued support in our quest to improve the fitness of the Assam Police,” Singh wrote on Twitter.
The tests were held at 36 locations across Assam on August 16, and Singh himself was the first officer to go through it. He said that his BMI count was 25, which is the standard they are looking for in every police personnel in the long run.
“When I joined as the DGP in January this year, I told each police personnel to get fit. We gave them time to transform themselves, and official notice was issued in May,” Singh told the Hindustan Times on Saturday.
He said that all 1,748 police personnel who failed in the first phase will get another chance in January next year, and during this period, they will get free medical support.
“They’ll go through free liver function tests, kidney function tests, whole blood profile, etc. If medical interventions are required, we’ll provide that too,” he said.
“As approved by the Chief Minister of Assam, these personnel would now be thoroughly tested at Government Medical Colleges for any underlying medical condition and provided medical and nutritional support and tested again after three months,” he further wrote on Twitter.
“Hope to see a fitter Assam Police in days and years to come,” said Singh.
The DGP said any candidate who fails in the second attempt would be sent to voluntary retirement. There will be exceptions for those suffering from medical conditions for which body weight cannot be reduced, Singh said.
In the first week of May this year, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma expressed concern over the poor health of cops due to excessive alcohol consumption and lack of exercise and asked the DGP to assess whether the officials were actively participating in physical fitness exercises, regularly visiting police stations, and performing their duties punctually.
Singh said that their aim is to create a healthy police force. “From now, we’ll conduct BMI tests every year, and we’ll improve the standard every year. We aim to reach the 25 BMI standard, and I hope we’ll reach there in the next 7-8 years,” he said.
Singh said that they don’t want to create unnecessary pressure on anyone. “We don’t want to harass them. By exercising regularly for years will benefit them both physically and mentally. They’ll lead a better family life, that is also important,” he said.
The Body Mass Index (BMI) is a widely used measure to determine whether a person’s weight falls within the healthy range. It is calculated by dividing your weight in kilograms into meters by the square of your height (BMI = weight (kg)/ height (m2). BMI provides a rough estimate of the percentage of body fat and helps the individual to divide into different categories, a senior police officer said.