The police department of Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh is making news for undertaking a different kind of work these days, something that has no relation to policing whatsoever. They are personally coaching and preparing students for government jobs. A few members of the department took a unique step of providing coaching to those students who are deprived of good educational facilities. The initiative, which started with providing coaching for government recruitments to children of families living in the police line, has now expanded to include economically backward children of their own district as well as other districts of the state.

Two 2016-batch IPS officers, Mr. Agam Jain and Mr. Amit Kumar, and Subedar Yogesh Chouksey, are among the founding members of this initiative.

STARTED DURING PANDEMIC

In conversation with Indian Masterminds, IPS officer Agam Jain said, “During the beginning of the year 2020, we planned for starting this initiative of training students for government recruitments as a counter to the loss dealt by coaching centres and other institutions during the Covid pandemic. Many coaching institutions got shut down and this was affecting students.”

Around this time, Chhatarpur SP was also involved in starting a similar initiative where they were providing coaching for the recruitment of constable for free. Subedar Yogesh Chouksey pointed this out by sharing a Facebook post of Chhatarpur SP and planted the idea of starting a similar initiative in Jabalpur district in his department.

IPS officer Agam Jain was convinced by the idea, and he took no time in planning out things to start this initiative as soon as possible. He said, “We had a ground and Rajgopal Mess Hall in the Police Line itself which could be used for both physical and coaching respectively. Initially, we started the initiative for the children living in the Police Line only.”

POLICE OFFICIALS AS FACULTY

Once the initiative kicked off, local students started approaching the officers to include them in the classes, as well. Mr. Jain said, “When we took the first class, I was surprised as more than 60 students attended the class. We did not expect such a response and weren’t even prepared to take class of these many students. Soon coaching institutions started approaching us and hooked with us for teaching for free.”

Mr. Yogesh Chouksey campaigned about the initiative in the villages and spread awareness about the step taken for economically backward students. The coaching was being provided for government recruitments, including constable and sub-inspector recruitment, bank, Staff Selection Commission (SSC) exam, and Central Police Organisation (CPO) tests.

The faculty members are the police officials themselves. Mr. Yogesh Chouksey teaches Reasoning and Mathematics, constable Jaiprakash Tiwari teaches Science, whereas another constable in charge Bhupendra Singh teaches Geography. Apart from this, the current Additional SP, Rohit Kashwani, gives motivational lectures to the students and prepares them for interviews.

Before getting transferred, Mr. Agam Jain and Mr. Amit Kumar used to take motivational classes of the students daily and were quite involved in teaching the children. Not only the police officers but people from outside are also involved in teaching them. LIC Development Officer, Tarun Boriya, and private coaching centre teacher Ankit Bagri are also an integral part of the coaching.

EXCEPTIONAL RESPONSE

The number of students starting increasing day by day and the registration jumped from 60 to 850 students in no time. Not only from the city, but students started coming from other nearby districts as well. The students were being taught from morning to evening and physical training was also conducted early morning every day, which was attended by more than 200 students.

With the involvement of skilled trainees and the dedication shown by the police team, the initiative is a hit and till now five students have already been selected, out of which two have been selected in Delhi Police, one in Jail Police, and one in the Ministry of Defence.