The Police Canine Squad’s Expansion Plan

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs in India has planned to expand its canine squad three-times by the next year. Presently, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) acquires around 300 puppies in a year.

The Police Modernisation Division had organized a MHA seminar on February 25 and 26. They were tasked with equipping the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF’s) trained canines and recommend increasing the number of canines trained to join the force.

While speaking to India Today, consulting director at the MHA’s Police K9 cell, Colonel Pramod Kumar Chugh stated that their first step was to increase the performance standards of their canines and improve their efficiency to make them more effective force multipliers.

Their second step was to increase the number of canines in the squad and train canines with exceptional qualities for police duty. An increasing number of canines in the squad will lead to an improvement in infrastructure at the centre, such as building kennels, etc.

The seminar was conducted in Delhi and all seven CAPF’s working under the MHA attended the seminar. The seminar concluded that dual-purpose canines need to be acquired by the CAPF’s.

The CAPF’s have around 4000 trained canines and it is the largest police canine squad in the country. The canines carry out various tasks that range from detection of explosives to assaults and guard roles. The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) works with 1,500 canines while the National Security Guard (NSG) works with less than 100 canines.

Currently, the CAPF’s are trying to explore different ways or tasks that canines can be trained for, such as identification of fake currency.

The K-9 canine police squad was established in the year 2019 within MHA. Officials have planned to set up an assessment test for the canines, the test will be called ad “Augmentation of K9s by Licensing as per Accreditation Norms” (AKLAN).

The efficiency of the canines and their parliamentary roles will be assessed based on the tests. Since there was no model of assessment earlier, canines were selected based on the random audits carried out.

The CAPF’s are also evaluating the suitability of introducing various Indian hounds for police duty. The seminar also recommended that there should be an upgrade in training the canines.