Tourism cops face language hiccups

KOCHI: A new chapter in the city tourism sector started when the International Tourism Police Station and Police Museum at Fort Kochi was inaugurated last year. Set up with the aim of giving an impetus to tourism, the first-of-its-kind museum in the country was inaugurated by the then tourism minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan with the promise of turning it into a hub to provide information to the tourists.However, there are areas where tourists find it non-user friendly, as most of the policemen deployed in the museum lacked ‘professionalism’,  International Forum for Cultural Heritage and Tradition (IFCHAT) president Austin Paul said.“It appears that the government did very little homework before launching the museum,” a tourist said.“One of the main problem is that the museum employees are not able with tourists in their mother tongue. Though police personnel attended short-term courses on various foreign languages, they are not comfortable when confronted by Japanese, German, French, Chinese tourists, among others,” Paul said.The police station is manned by 14 constables headed by a sub-inspector. On a given day, there are only enough staff on duty to man the museum. Hence, they are unable to carry out rounds in the Fort Kochi and Mattanchery area. “With the existing number of staff, it is not possible to send out them on field,” said an official.The Tourism Department has washed its hands off the issue by passing the buck to the Police Department.“Since it is a police station-run museum, the initiative should come from the Police Department,” V Venu, Tourism Secretary, said.Saying that his department was all prepared to train police, he added that they had not yet received any such request from the police.  “We are conducting a programme for the benefit of those functioning in the service sector. We have no problem in extending the facility to the police,” he said. A police official said that there were no plans of participating the police of tourism museum in orientation programmes of the Tourism Department.