Policing is all about caring and responding to people’s needs and woes, which Chennai Police Commissioner Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal has proved in his own fashion. He is arranging admissions for those children of cops who have completed Class XII so that their studies do not suffer due to the corona induced lockdown. Senthamizh aspired to study agriculture as a subject in the college but she was not finding a way out to do the needful as her parents are in the Police Department and busy to the hilt discharging their corona duties.

Finally, Agarwal rose to the occasion and made arrangements for Senthamizh and 122 others like her to pursue a career of their choice. Of them, 50 have been given a full waiver of their course fee as well. For this to happen, Police Commissioner Aggarwal reached out to various institutions with a request for admissions to children of police fighting Covid-19. The father of Senthamizh, who has got admission in B Sc, Plant Biology and Biotechnology, is a Sub Inspector and her mother a Constable.

The Commissioner’s initiative revived the teenager’s hopes. “I am so happy now. My family has a small piece of land in Chidambaram. My dream is to do mixed farming including fishery, poultry, and horticulture — all organically,” says Senthamizh. For Pavurnika, who aspired to study Information Technology, her father testing positive for Covid-19 came as a bolt out of the blue. 

“If not for the Commissioner’s initiative, it would have become very difficult for us,” says Pavurnika’s father Satish Babu, a Head Constable. “I had given my word to my daughter. But then there I was, down with Covid-19. Now, I still cannot believe that the entire fee of my daughter’s education has been waived.”

“Gestures such as these will remind those working tirelessly that good deeds will not go unrewarded,” says Mahesh Kumar Agarwal. So far, over 2,262 police personnel have been affected by Covid-19 in Chennai, of which 1,800 have returned to active duty. Hats off to Chennai Police Commissioner Mahesh Kumar Agarwal for doing a great job in khaki!