A Fitness Review For "Obese" Assam Policemen

In a bid to ensure a professional outfit, the re-examination of body mass index (BMI) of "obese" Assam Police personnel began on Tuesday, a top official said.

Police personnel, who will fail to meet the required standard will undergo an 'assessment' of the factors due to which they could not make it, as the exercise is aimed at improving "fitness of the force and not punishing anyone", another official said.

The review of BMI of 1,884 police personnel started at Jorhat, Silchar and Guwahati, Director General of Police GP Singh said.

The state police had conducted the body mass index (BMI) check of all personnel in August last year with the director general of police (DGP) undergoing the screening test first.

"The review BMI testing for the 1884 police personnel has started at Jorhat, Silchar and Guwahati," Mr Singh wrote on X on Tuesday.

Body mass index is a measurement of a person's weight with respect to his or her height. According to the World Health Organization, a BMI over 25 is considered overweight, and over 30 is obese.

Reaffirming stress on physical fitness, the DGP said, "Hope most of them have shaped up in the three months period given. We remain committed to provide people of Assam a professional and fit Police Unit." The exercise is being carried out to ensure better health of the serving personnel, another officer said on condition of anonymity.

"Our aim is to have a healthy police force. If someone cannot achieve the BMI standard due to medical reasons, it's a different matter.

"But if someone cannot meet it without any underlying medical condition, we will make an assessment of the reasons for it," he said.

There could be reasons like the nature of assignment or place of posting or something else, the officer said.

"Depending on why the personnel are not being able to meet the BMI standard, the decision will be taken. It has to be a policy-level decision," he said.

Asked if a policeman failing to meet the requirements could lose their jobs, he refused to comment.

"We want our force to be a fit one. That is the basic idea behind this exercise, not to punish anyone," he said.

Nearly 2.5 per cent of the police personnel, who had undergone BMI tests in August last year, were found obese and were put under medical care to make them fit, Mr Singh had said earlier.

Altogether 70,161 personnel had undergone such a test in the first phase of the exercise, and of them, 1,748 were found to have BMI readings of over 30, he said.

The DGP had earlier said that all those who would not be able to reduce their weight by the end of the stipulated period would be offered a voluntary retirement option, except for those who have genuine medical reasons like thyroidism.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had previously advocated removing the 'dead wood' from the police force - habitual drinkers, those with extreme obesity and with charges of corruption - to turn the force into a responsive and action-oriented one.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)