User:Deepak G Goswami/Central Industrial Security Force

The Central Industrial Security Force (commonly abbreviated as the CISF) is a Central Armed Police Force in India responsible for providing security coverage to various vital public sector undertakings, major civil airports and seaports, space and atomic energy installations, Central Government buildings in Delhi and Delhi Metro among other such establishments where threat perception is high. It was formed on 10 March 1969 with a strength of 2,800 personnel by the Central Industrial Security Force Act, 1968, of the Parliament of India and subsequently with an amendment in this act on 15 June 1983 it was made an armed force. Headed by a director general of police-rank officer and headquartered at New Delhi, the total strength of the force is 1,41,421 as of 1 March 2020.

Described as a "dynamic force" by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the role of CISF has evolved with time; started as essentially public sector undertaking-guarding force, it is now involved in providing security to several installations and people in different areas.

History
India adopted Soviet model of planned economy after the independence and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru promoted an economic policy based on import substitution industrialisation. The second five year plan (1956–60) and the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 emphasised the development of public sector undertakings (PSUs) to meet Nehru's national industrialisation policy. The Government of India emphasised heavily in developing industries and its concern for the industrial security persuaded it in 1961 to appoint a high ranking police officer as the Security Advisor in the Department of Industry for advising the PSUs on security related matters. Findings of the Security Advisor outlined many defects in the security arrangements of the PSUs and recommendation was made to setup a "unified force" exclusively to provide security and protection to PSUs. A major fire at Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) production plant in Ranchi on 29 January 1964 resulted colossal loss of property. This incident was followed by disturbances among the workers of the plant in the town. The local policemen that were responsible for guarding the industrial plant were diverted and deployed to apprehend the growing violence and maintain law and order in the town which left the security of the plant compromised. These developments highlighted poor state of industrial security in the country and attracted national attention including of the Parliament. The Government of India acted upon the issue by appointing a judicial commission of inquiry headed by retired justice of Allahabad High Court B. Mukherjee. The Mukherjee Commission found sabotage as a reason behind the fire at the HEC and reported inadequate security arrangements in industries at large. His report also recommended of creating a central industrial security force under the Government of India. When the matter was discussed and the report was tabled at the Lok Sabha on 3 October 1964, the Union Minister of Industry and Steel Tribhuvan Narain Singh assured the house that the suggestion of Justice Mukherjee regarding setting up a central security agency for industrial security was under "examination" by the government.

The Government of India brought the Central Industrial Security Force Bill, 1968, in order to materialise the recommendations for establishing a federally-governed industrial security force. When the bill was discussed in the parliament strong objections were raised by the opposition parties against the clause which conferred power of arrest to the personnel of CISF, which is usually held by state police. Members of the opposition parties expressed their disapproval as they were of the opinion that this clause would infringe upon the constitutional right of the states by allowing a federal force to exercise the power which otherwise comes under a state subject. However, the objection was dismissed by the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Vidya Charan Shukla, by underscoring the inadequacy of the contemporary security system of the PSUs and the urgency of forming a trained disciplined force to ameliorate the latter. The bill became an act on 2 December 1968 and came into force on 10 March 1969 when the Central Industrial Security Force was raised with a strength of 2,800 personnel. This day is celebrated every year by the force as its Raising Day. However, the force was not made an armed force and its mandate was of watch and ward nature for maintaining vigilance and guard at the industries. The first induction of the CISF in a PSU was held at a Fertilizer Corporation of India manufacturing plant (which was later reorganised into Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers) in Trombay, Maharashtra on 1 November 1969 and the next day on 2 November 1969 it was inducted at Bokaro Steel Company Limited, Bokaro.

Conflict at Bokaro
The discontent due to low salary and poor working condition among the personnel deployed at CISF unit of Bokaro Steel Company Limited (BSCL) led to an armed rebellion on 25 June 1979. There was a steep disparity between the salaries of CISF personnel and their civilian counterparts working in the company; the average salary of a constable was approximately ₹320 per month while even the lowest paid employee of the company, a peon, was getting ₹600 per month. This resentment among the personnel was accentuated due to the fact that the company was paying almost double to the CISF in contrast to what was paid to them after deduction. A demonstration was held in the unit in May 1979. The agitation grew further when a national association representing CISF personnel from different units was established in June 1979, which, however, was against the provisions of CISF Act, 1968. Members of this association were called upon to meet the Union Home Minister at New Delhi. They were arrested in New Delhi on 14 June 1979 allegedly for refusing to wear uniform to meet the Home Minister. One of the main leaders of the association, S. D. Majhi, managed to escape the arrest and reached the unit to organise protests against the incident that happened in New Delhi. A procession was carried out on 16 June and 14 demands were put forward which included among others immediate release of members of the association, the right to form associations and a raise of ₹200 in salary. The protests turned into a rebellion when around 1,000 agitators took control of CISF barracks including the armoury. Several attempts were made from both the senior officers of the CISF and the Chief Secretary of Bihar to placate the agitators but to no avail. A brigade of Punjab Regiment comprising 3,600 soldiers was called from Ramgarh Cantonment to make the CISF agitators surrender. The army operation that included 900 personnel began at the midnight of 24 June 1979. The nearby units of the Central Reserve Police Force and the Bihar Military Police were asked by the army to provide assistance in cordoning off the rear side of the CISF barracks but both of them refused to aid the army in this operation. More than two dozen personnel of both the army and the CISF succumbed and more than 100 received injuries in a three-and-a-half hour long operation. The agitators were forced to surrender in the end when the army started using mortars. More than 500 personnel were dismissed from the service and around 200 were charged with rioting and sedition.

Armed force status
The Government of India brought an amendment bill, the Central Industrial Security Force (Amendment) Bill, 1983, to grant the status of armed force to the CISF. The amendment was passed in March 1983 and came into force three months later on 15 June. It effectively prohibits the CISF personnel from becoming a member of any association which is not of a "purely social, recreational or religious nature" without getting approval of the Central Government or of the competent authority. It also forbids the members of force from addressing or participating in any political gathering and communicating with the press. While adding to the restrictions already incorporated in the original act, the amendment augmented the disciplinary powers of the supervisory officers. The status of armed force brought the CISF under the purview of article 33 of the Indian Constitution which empowers the parliament to restrict or abrogate the fundamental rights of the members of armed forces. The amendment extended the powers of the force and it became from a "custodial force" to "law and order maintenance force".

Protection of employees
An amendment to the Section 10 of the CISF Act, 1968, in 1989 made it a duty of CISF personnel to protect and safeguard the employees of an enterprise where it is deployed. The Government of India brought this amendment after the kidnapping and killing of H. L. Khera, general manager of Hindustan Machine Tools watch factory at Srinagar, by the members of Students Liberation Front. The CISF was deployed at this installation when its general manager Khera was kidnapped on 6 April 1989 and four days later on 10 April his dead body was recovered by police in Srinagar.

Amendment of 1999
The CISF Act, 1968, was amended by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government to add two major provisions besides other minor changes; one was to enable the Central Government to entrust any other duty to the CISF by changing Section 3 titled "Constitution of the Force" and another was by adding a new Section 14A with title "Technical Consultancy Service to industrial establishments". This amendment provided the CISF a mandate to offer security consultancy services to the industrial establishments in the private sector on their requests after charging a fee which is to be credited in the consolidated fund of India as dictated by the subsection second of the mentioned section.

Security to private enterprises
A series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008, in which besides other locations the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and the Oberoi Trident hotel were also targeted, made many private sector companies, including Tata Group, The Oberoi Group, Infosys and the Jamnagar Refinery of Reliance Industries Limited, to request the Minister of Home Affairs P. Chidambaram to allow CISF security cover for their respective enterprises. The 2008 bombing of Indian embassy in Kabul also persuaded the Central Government to improve the security arrangements of Indian diplomatic missions abroad. However, the mandate of the CISF as per the CISF Act, 1968, allowed it to provide its security service to public sector undertakings and to be deployed in Indian territory only. The Manmohan Singh Government brought an amendment in December 2009 to enlarge the mandate of the force related to its service and deployment. The Central Industrial Security Force (Amendment) Bill, 2008, was introduced by Chidambaram in the Rajya Sabha on 18 December 2008. It proposed to bring joint ventures of federal government or state governments with private industrial undertakings and private sector enterprises in the possible security ambit of the CISF and to enhance the territorial purview of the force by enabling the Central Government to deploy it outside of India. The bill was referred to the parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, headed by Sushma Swaraj, at the last day of the winter session of the parliament on 1 January 2009. The government decided to bring an ordinance to give effect to amendments proposed in the bill after the approval of the Union Cabinet on 2 January 2009. The ordinance, the Central Industrial Security Force (Amendment) Ordinance, 2009, was promulgated on 10 January 2009.

After scrutinising the bill, the standing committee tabled its report at parliament on 13 February 2009. Subsequently, the bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on 19 February 2009 and by the Rajya Sabha on 25 February 2009. The amendment act was published in the Gazette of India on 16 March 2009 after receiving the assent of the President. It came into force retrospectively from 10 January 2009 due to the promulgation of the ordinance. The Ministry of Home Affairs outlined a priority order for the CISF to take into consideration before assessing the requests of private sector undertakings. According to this order, the first priority is to be given to sectors like power, atomic energy, space, airports, science and technology and information technology; the second priority covers major private undertakings situated in Naxalite or insurgency-affected areas; and lastly those undertakings which do not get covered by either of two categories could be given security after threat analysis.

Mission and duties
The main objective of the CISF at its inception was to provide security and protection to the public-sector undertakings in the country. However, over the years, its role has been enhanced vastly by the Government of India by bringing multiple amendments to the governing act of the force, the CISF Act, 1968. It has been transformed from a "PSU-centric organisation" to "multi-skilled security agency" providing its security cover and consultancy services to both public and private sector enterprises, security details to very important persons, disaster relief through the deputation of its personnel in the National Disaster Response Force and sending personnel for the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti.

Organisation
The CISF is headed by a director general, subject to the control of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. The Director General is an Indian Police Service officer of the rank director general of police; currently the post is held by Rajesh Ranjan, a 1984-batch IPS officer from Bihar cadre, who assumed the charge on 10 April 2018 and would remain in office till his retirement on 30 November 2020. The headquarters of the force is situated at CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi. There are two special directors general; Alok Kumar Pateria, a 1986-batch IPS officer from Madhya Pradesh cadre, who heads the headquarters and M. A. Ganapathy, a 1986-batch IPS officer from Uttarakhand cadre, who is in charge of the Airport Sector.

Induction procedure
The Central Industrial Security Force is the only cost reimbursement force in India as its cost of induction is bear by an enterprise to which it provides its service. The cost includes the salaries of all the deployed CISF personnel and the defined pensions contributions in respect of these personnel; their travelling expenses including CISF vehicles; cost of uniform, accouterments, arms and ammunition and security gadgets. The enterprise makes advance payment of the bills that are generated each month and a security deposit equal to the three months billings is kept with the CISF that is paid at the time of induction. Offices for the deployed CISF administration, barracks and family accommodations for the posted personnel are provided by the enterprise as per government prescribed scale. Any other administrative and operational costs are also bear by the enterprise. The enterprise pays ex gratia in respect of any personnel who gets injured or dies while on duty.

The CISF, on receiving a request for induction, sends the terms and conditions as proposed and approved by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to the client enterprise. A joint security survey is conducted at the site for which deployment is requested by a board comprising experts of CISF and representatives nominated by the enterprise for assessing threat related to the site. Besides security risk analysis this board also determines the number of personnel to be deployed, required accommodations including barracks and family quarters, transport arrangements including motor vehicles, modes of communication and other administrative and operational facilities that are requisites for induction. The constitution and proceedings of the board are carried out after the advance payment of survey fee to the CISF by the client enterprise. The rates of this survey fee are fixed by the MHA. A requisition is forwarded by the enterprise when it reaches to an agreement with the CISF after the security survey. After receiving the security deposit and fulfillment of pre-induction requirements by the enterprise the CISF is inducted at the site.

Personnel
The Central Industrial Security Force Act, 1968, classifies force personnel into three categories: (1) supervisory officers, they are the Government of India appointed gazetted officers from the rank of assistant commandant to the director general; (2) subordinate officers, they are the members of the force of the ranks assistant sub-inspector, sub-inspector and inspector; (3) under officers, they are the members of the force of ranks head-constable and constable. Members of the force from the rank of constable to inspector are classified as the enrolled members of the force by the Section 2 of the CISF Act, 1968. The Rule 3 of the CISF Rules, 2001, constitutes the force into three branches: executive, ministerial and fire service; each of these branches also forms a separate cadre for the purpose of seniority, promotion and confirmation on the rank as per the Rule 22. As of 1 March 2020, the CISF has a strength of 1,41,421 against the sanctioned strength of 1,52,049 personnel.

Recruitment
The entry level exam for the CISF supervisory officers, for the rank of assistant commandant, is the Central Armed Police Forces (Assistant Commandant) Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission since 2003. The Staff Selection Commission conducts the Sub Inspectors in Delhi Police and Central Armed Police Forces & Assistant Sub Inspectors in CISF Examination for the direct recruitment of sub-inspectors and assistant sub-inspectors. Constables are recruited through the Constable (GD) in CAPFs, NIA, SSF and Rifleman in Assam Rifles Examination which is also conducted by the Staff Selection Commission.

Training
The Training Sector is a dedicated sector of the CISF for the training of both newly recruited and in-service force personnel. It comprises an academy, the National Industrial Security Academy (NISA) at Hyderabad, the Fire Service Training Institute (FSTI) within the campus of NISA, and six Recruit Training Centres (RTCs). The Sector is headed by an inspector general-rank officer who also serves in the capacity of director of NISA. Anjana Sinha, an Indian Police Service officer from Andhra Pradesh-cadre, currently holds the position since her deputation to the Centre. The RTCs are situated in Arakkonam, Barwaha, Behror, Bhilai, Deoli and Mundali. Each RTC and the FSTI are headed by a deputy inspector general.

Fire service
The CISF Fire Wing is a special wing dedicated to provide fire safety services to the public-sector undertakings (PSUs) and other government establishments. The CISF is the only Central Armed Police Force which has its own separate fire service division and is considered to possess "well trained" and equipped firefighting staff. With a strength of total 7,549 personnel, the CISF Fire Wing is the largest fire service in the country. It was a part of the Mukherjee Commission report in 1964 to provide a mandate of firefighting to the force that would be assigned the responsibility of covering the security of the PSUs. The Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Limited at Cochin was the first industrial establishment where the CISF Fire Wing was inducted on 16 April 1970 with 53 personnel. A separate fire wing cadre within the CISF was created when the Government of India approved recruitment rules for various posts of this new cadre in January 1991 and it came into effect on 12 January 1991. It is currently deployed at more than a hundred industrial and non-industrial public sector establishments with many of them being highly sensitive and hazardous including petrochemical industries, oil refineries, fertiliser plants, Ministry of Defence installations, currency printing presses, steel plants, port trusts and Indian Space Research Organisation installations among others.

Security consultancy
The CISF provides consultancy to both public and private enterprises in the fields of security and fire safety. A special wing dedicated for this purpose was inaugurated on 7 December 2001 by the Deputy Prime Minister of India Lal Krishna Advani at the CISF Headquarters after the force received this mandate with an amendment in the CISF Act, 1968, in 1999. It is the only Government of India approved security consultancy body in the country and has provided its services to many industrial installations, educational institutions and government buildings including Indian Institutes of Technology, Lucknow Metro, jails in Madhya Pradesh, different campuses of Infosys and Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams among others. The fees it charge for its services are revised and approved by the Ministry of Home affairs periodically and credited to the Consolidated Fund of India.

Airport security
The CISF is the airport police of India and currently provides security coverage to 63 civilian airports throughout the country. The CISF sector committed for this purpose is the Airport Sector, headed by a special director general of police-rank officer. It is the largest of all the sectors of the CISF comprising more than one-fifth of all the CISF personnel deployed in it. It was after the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 by terrorists when the Government of India decided on 7 January 2000 to involve only one agency in securing the airports of the country. The CISF was assigned with this responsibility and in less than a month on 3 February 2000 it was inducted at Jaipur Airport in Rajasthan. The process of inducting CISF at different airports was accelerated after September 11 attacks in the United States in which four passenger aeroplanes were hijacked by terrorists.

Security of Delhi Metro
The CISF Unit Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is responsible for providing security to Delhi Metro which is the largest and most busiest metro network in India. It took over the charge of security of the metro from Delhi Police on 15 April 2007. Headed by a deputy inspector general-rank officer, this unit is the single largest unit of the CISF with the sanctioned strength of 12,528 personnel. The interiors of the metro stations are covered by the security of the CISF and Delhi Police is responsible for the exteriors including parking areas. Closed-circuit cameras are used to monitor trains and stations, and feed from these is monitored by both the CISF and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation staff at their respective control rooms.

VIP security
The Special Security Group (SSG) was created in 2006 and came into operation in 2007 with a sanctioned strength of 1,200 personnel including 23 women to provide security details to very important persons (VIPs). The Central Government approved an increase in the strength of the SSG by 1,500 in 2017. Headquartered at CISF Camp in Surajpur, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, the SSG is administratively a part of the Airport Sector and is headed by a deputy general inspector-rank officer.

The Ministry of Home Affairs, under Rajnath Singh, had decided on 23 November 2017 that only the CISF and the National Security Guard (NSG) would assign security details to the VIPs and that other federal agencies, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), would be relieved from this duty. However, this decision was objected by the CRPF through its Director General R. R. Bhatnagar who wrote his dissent to the new Home Minister Amit Shah. Shah, who himself receives the protection from a CRPF security detail, reverted the earlier decision of the Ministry on the CRPF request which also referred VIP security as the "only soft posting" for its personnel. The NSG, which was detailed for providing protection to 13 top Z+ category security details, was relieved from its VIP security duty by the Ministry of Home Affairs in January 2020 and it was decided to reassign the security details of the NSG to the CISF and the CRPF.

Disaster management
The CISF maintains two of twelve battalions for the National Disaster Response Force, which is a specialised agency for responding to natural and man-made disasters in India. The Third NDRF Battalion at Recruit Training Centre, Mundali, Cuttack, Odisha, has area of responsibility in Odisha and Chattisgarh. The Fourth NDRF Battalion at Recruit Training Centre, Arakkonam, Tamil Nadu, has responsibility of disaster management for the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. These battalions were raised in 2006. Each battalion has a strength of around 1149 personnel divided among 18 self-sufficient specialist search and rescue teams. A team is composed of 45 personnel including engineers, electricians, technicians, dog squads and paramedics. Personnel deputed to these battalions are trained and equipped in collapsed structure search and rescue, medical first response and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense.

Deployment in private sector enterprises
After the amendment of 2009 in the CISF Act, 1968, the purview of the CISF was enhanced to include security service for private industrial undertakings. The amendment act defined private industrial undertaking as "an industry owned, controlled or managed by a person other than the Central or State Government or any industrial undertaking in public sector". The first induction of the CISF in a private company was held at Infosys headquarters in Bangalore, Karnataka, on 31 July 2009. The Chairman and Chief Mentor of Infosys N. R. Narayana Murthy hosted the CISF flag to inaugurate the force deployment at the Bangalore campus of the company and received a guard of honour from the force personnel.

Deployment in outside of India
The Central Industrial Security Force (Amendment) Act, 2009, enabled the Central Government to deploy the CISF outside of India. However, the first foreign mission for its personnel was in Cambodia in 1992 when they were deployed under the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia. Its largest contingent in any foreign mission, comprising 140 personnel, was deployed in the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti as an Indian Formed Police Unit (IFPU) on 17 August 2008. The CISF IFPU was assigned the responsibility to provide security to the official residence of the President of Haiti, the National Palace, besides assisting in maintaining the law and order. Selection of the CISF personnel for deployment at the UN Mission in Haiti required them to be specially trained in weapon handling, crowd control and addressing hostage crisis.

The CISF was entrusted with the security of the Indian Embassy in Nepal at Kathmandu and the Consulate-General of India at Birgunj in 2005. Currently 65 personnel are deployed at the embassy and 15 at the consulate-general. 16 personnel including drivers were deployed at the High Commission of India, Islamabad, in March 2009. 50 constables and head constables with age not more than 45 years, trained in unarmed combat and with driving skills were deputed to the Ministry of External Affairs for five years in 2012 to serve in different Indian missions in Asia and Europe after it was found in May 2012 that a Taliban terrorist trained in Pakistan was plotting to attack the Indian Embassy in Paris. Both the

Indian media reported on 15 June 2020 that two staffers of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad were missing since morning and it was confirmed by the Government of India that two CISF drivers had gone out for duty in a vehicle but did not reach the destination. Media in Pakistan reported that two officials of the Indian High Commission were arrested for an alleged hit and run case. The incident was widely reported in India and the Ministry of External Affairs summoned the chargé d'affaires of High Commission of Pakistan in New Delhi Syed Hyder Shah and asked him that both the personnel should not be interrogated or harassed and be released from custody immediately. The incident happened after India communicated to Pakistan on 12 June 2020 through a note verbale that it was doing excessive surveillance of Indian diplomats in Islamabad which was the violation of Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Code of Conduct for the Treatment of Diplomatic/Consular Personnel of India and Pakistan signed between the two countries in 1992. Both the staffers – named by the Capital Territory Police of Islamabad as Silvades Paul and Dawamu Brahamu – were later released by the police citing their diplomatic immunity and were handed over to the Indian mission in the presence of the representatives of the Government of Pakistan.