Mumbai police commissioner Sanjeev Dayal wants his men to shape up. To make it happen, he plans to tie up with the policemen’s wives. Woe betide the cop who dares to defy the police chief in office and the boss lady at home.     

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Dayal wants the cops to bring nourishing home-cooked food to work. The greasy stuff they eat at unsavoury food joints is taking toll on their health, he said. The new police commissioner plans to meet the policemen’s wives soon, and request them to take charge of enforcing the ‘dabba’ law.

“Policemen are always hard-pressed when on duty. Often they have to skip food. It affects their health. Otherwise, they eat at cheap joints where the food is not so good. To address this problem, we have decided to hold samvad (interactive session) with the wives of our policemen,” Dayal said.

The wives of the cops will also be meeting nutritionists and dieticians, who will prepare diet charts for the cops. “It will be for the policemen’s wives to ensure that their husbands stick to the diet. They should send them to work with tiffin boxes packed with prescribed home-cooked food. We, too, will be telling the cops that they should not be eating poor quality food outside,” Dayal said.

The wives will be meeting the dieticians and the nutritionists at regular intervals to assess the progress. The police chief feels that with the wives cracking the whip at home, and the police department keeping a watch at the work place, it will be possible to cure the irregular eating habits of the cops.

There are over 45,000 policemen in the Mumbai police force. They have to perform all sorts of duties — maintaining law and order, VIP bandobust, naka bandi, election duty, festival duty, etc. Also, they have to constantly chase criminals and collect evidences against them. Theirs is a stressful job. So, it is all the more necessary they eat healthy.

There are too many policemen with diabetes and/or high blood pressure. Blame it on their irregular eating habits. Fit police officials are entitled to a health allowance. But it has been learnt that not many policemen in the force are fit enough to avail the allowance.

Dayal’s predecessor, D Sivanandhan, had set up a canteen at the police headquarters, Naigaum. which served health food to the cops. But as it is not possible to have such a facility at every police station in the city, Dayal is stressing on home-cooked food.