Times maybe a changing for the private security industry. The efforts of the Security Watch India (SWI), the non-partisan not-for-profit organisation that addresses issues in the relatively new homeland security sector, may lead to the availability of more and more very well-trained and “well-rounded” security personnel who are certified.
Towards this, the SWI has set up a training facility at Belgundy village in Belgaum district. The facility spread over 200-acre was spearheaded by Harry Dhaul, director general, SWI. But, these guards won’t come cheap. They would have to be paid perhaps upto Rs 1 lakh a month! That’s what one may have to pay for a well-polished and well-rounded and educated security personnel. The private security guards industry employs about 7.9 million people. But, nearly 99 per cent of them are said to be poorly or ill-trained. Most are even malnourished or undernourished, thanks to the poor salaries they get.
But, what about the rich and well-off who can afford to pay good amounts of money for their personal security? They are not sure of what they may be getting into as they cannot be sure of what they are getting as they are not sure what skills the security guard has.
Till now, even the use of the gun by a security guard is only for his own security and not for the security of another individual as it is illegal to do so. The facility can house and train about 120 people at a given time. Now, “the Maharashtra government has approached the SWI to train about 500 security personnel,” said Dhaul. SWI serves as a link between homeland security stakeholders to communicate policy reforms and industry standards for security.
Meanwhile, Maroof Raza, Mentor, SWI, said, the infrastructure protection in India is woefully inadequate. Not even 1 per cent of our GDP is invested in security, he added. He pointed out that Pakistan was trying to bleed India and extract concessions. Hence, it’s important that Indian economy grows fast. Once the Indian economy is 23 times the size of the Pakistani economy in another 15 years, their stand wouldn’t hold water in the comity of nations.
P S Sandhu, IG, Belgaum region, said Karnataka alone needs a police strength of 540,000 to keep with the globally-agreed ratio of one policeman for a population of 222. Going by this, Karnataka needs to recruit another 400,000 policemen. Any security breach could have a huge spillover effect, he added.
