Leading The Way! Kozhikode To Enrol City's First-Ever Batch Of Student Cadets For Traffic Management

Following in line with the model Student Police Cadet (SPC) project launched in Kerala state in 2010, Kozhikode will be establishing its first set of cadets to manage traffic in the city. A meeting is due to be held with the city police and education department to map the project appropriately and plan the enrollment of hundreds of students. The formation of Student Traffic Cadets (STCs) will make effective use of the students' services in managing the rush hours during mass events and celebrations in the city.

Art Festival Rush To Be Managed Better

The pilot STC project in Kozhikode city is looking to train a hundred students in the first phase after necessary permissions are secured from the police higher-ups and education department. The uniformed cadets would be chosen from college students in the first phase and would then slowly expand based on the requirement. A senior police officer who had brought the idea to the table conveyed that the students would not be given any "risky roles but small responsibilities that can reduce the overburden on traffic police officers during bigger events."

He had brought in the suggestion in light of the struggle faced by officers to manage the rush during the 61st State School Arts Festival. Though the city police team had charted out elaborate arrangements to manage the traffic, they were unable to reach out to every small responsibility. Additional police officers or home guards were forced to be posted at minor traffic diversions and to make road crossing arrangements for pedestrians. For such duties, they required a well-trained volunteer group among whom the minor responsibilities could be divided.

Students Leading The Way

A report by The Hindu suggested that the formation of the exclusive student wing for traffic management would be expanded to other districts after reviewing the performance of the trial batch. It has been a project that has long been implemented in the state to reduce the burden faced by traffic police officers, especially during big events such as the state arts festival.

The initiative by Kerala Police was put in place jointly by the Departments of Home and Education and supported by the departments of Transport, Forest, Excise and Local Self-Government. Under the ambitious project, they trained high school and college students to evolve as responsible citizens who hold respect for the law, discipline, civic sense, and empathy, among other virtues. It enabled the youth to explore their capacities and interests as a growing future of the country.

The police had proposed the project with a bigger picture in mind that empowered the youth with civic responsibility and also kept them from negative tendencies such as social intolerance, substance abuse, deviant behaviour, and anti-establishment violence. According to the Kerala Police, as of 2020, as many as 702 schools located in 19 police districts have a combined strength of 60,000 cadets for traffic management.

Also Read: Enlivening Uroob & Basheer's Stories: Here's How Kozhikode Teachers Welcomed People For 61st School Arts Festival