A public-private response to tackle terror

While it is indeed a sign of our times that companies have to pay to get the security that they should have had in the first place, I believe this could be a paradigm shift in the way public-private partnerships address the issue of terrorism and internal security.

The willingness of firms to make investments in security is a heartening sign of their readiness and concern to be active participants rather than passive stakeholders. However, this strategy needs to be thought through its implications and dimensions to be leveraged optimally.

Firstly, companies must realize that CISF or any such force is essentially a quick reaction team. The key word here is reaction. Hence, the police or private security cannot abdicate their responsibility to control, access or gather pre-emptive intelligence.

Grass roots security and first response will continue to be a police responsibility simply because the police force is closest to the community and can consequently spot weak signals first. Therefore, all initiatives to modernize them with superior intelligence gathering tools and immediate response equipment need to proceed on a fast track.

Secondly, CISF, like any other government force, is already stretched. As a matter of fact, it is yet to cover its current set of responsibilities with national assets such as airports because scaling up and maintaining high quality is a universal challenge.

Also, while the police force intends to augment strength by 10,000 every year, recruiting and churning out such numbers is a daunting task. CISF competes with the same catchment pool as the army and all other paramilitary forces, which are also increasing their strength rapidly.

However, the key issue that must be addressed by the private sector is—security at what cost? It is unarguable that government assets cost the exchequer around three times that of privately provisioned resources.

The private guarding business in India is the second largest employer of manpower after the manufacturing industry. Despite that, most of the guarding companies have an unsavoury reputation and the few that tend to adhere to standards are hobbled by the antiquated laws with regard to carriage of arms, thus adversely affecting their efficacy.

Taking a conceptual cue from the ministry of defence which has, in keeping with global practices, opened its resource pool to include the private sector, a public-private partnership could also be forged to tackle homeland security in India.

There are several reasons to do this.

Internal security in India is heading towards the perfect storm. Indian security forces are planning to launch the largest ever offensive action against Naxalites within the next few weeks. By sheer scale and spread, this operation will suck in several thousand government forces across scores of districts for the next three-four years.