Private Security on Railways

PRIVATE SECURITY ON RAILWAYS
This is an era of liberalization and downsizing of government functions. Keeping all the functions with oneself is an old thinking. Least governance is the best governance. The government as a whole and even its individual units like Railways, HRD etc has started evaluating their performance in terms of profits and losses. Every such unit tries its best to bring down the expenditures and increase incomes. The security on Railways, I think, should also assess and decide its role and functions in line with the parent unit.

The Railway is not only a part of welfare government, but also a commercial activity, a business. Railways in many other countries are profit earning activities. Railway is a commercial organization. Let the security officers beat their drums that, security is a very sensitive matter, privatizing it would mean leaking the operational secrets of railways or jeopardize with strategic interest etc. The management will not be convinced by the jargons. They say, civil engineering, mechanical, electrical, signal and telecommunication and even information technology works have been being outsourced for decades. Private labour and supervisors of the contractors roam around in so called sensitive areas and deal with so much sensitive information about the operations and administration of the Railways. The characters of these private persons are not even certified by the police in the most of the cases. When these men could not do any harm to the railways, how could the private security personnel, whose character is expected to be duly certified by the police, do harm to the Railway.

Up to 70s i.e, almost before the great Railway strike, very few of Railway functions were used to be outsourced. After 80s the winds of liberalization started blowing all over the world. The iron curtain of USSR collapsed down. The markets/demand & supply started deciding the direction of commerce and even that of governance. The departments of telecommunication, post, petroleum and so on started slipping away from the hands of the sovereign. Railways cannot be an exception.

Now almost all the works except the routine maintenance work of the departments like engineering, mechanical, electrical etc are being outsourced. Not only the technical departments but even the other department like stores, personal and accounts have started outsourcing some of their activities, so as to reduce the increasing burden of work on them and to be able to come up to the expectations of the Railway administration within the given manpower.



I think, outsourcing of miscellaneous functions is inevitable. If the security officers appose it tooth and nail, the Railway administration can go for private security on their own without consulting the security officers. Take an example of IREEN (Indian Railway Electrical Engineering Institute), Nasik. The founder Director of IREEN requested the security officer for some RPF staff to be posted at IREEN for security purpose. The request was turned down, saying that there was no spare manpower to do the job. The Director proposed to provide necessary funds and requested the security officer for deploying atleast some private security personals. The security officer wrote an essay against private security and in favour of the Armed Force. Finally the Director, IREEN himself appointed private security guards through an agency. He got cheaper and smarter security men for his campus. He banned RPF from entering his area. RPF was not allowed to interfere with the IREEN up to 1992.

In the light of my views about the private security on railways as above, I would like to shape it as below:

With monstrous growth of business, industry and activities every organization has started shedding its peripheral activities through outsourcing. Railways have been increased their business and activities manifold. The Railways departments like engineering, commercial etc outsourced number of their activities. To talk in the similar terms, the business and activities of RPF have also increased manifold. Therefore we should also shed out peripheral activities through outsourcing and concentrate more on our key role.

The RPF officers should come forward with appropriate zeal to willingly accept the security related jobs on Railways. Providing security to the Railway property, land, revenue, employees, passengers and their belongings, all these are responsibilities of the security department. Whether we protect these things/men with our own Force, with the help of GRP or with the help of private security should be the headache of the security officers. A security officer is also a security advisor to the Railways. He has to advise the Railways as to how best these things/men can be protected with minimum funds. The Railways provide more than 1000 crores to security department. Now it is the security officers who have to decide where and how to spend the budget.


The security officers should not allow any rupee of the Railway to be spent on security without their approval. Today, you can see that the expenditures on security of so many Railway units, sheds/workshops, colonies/offices are paid by Railway without consulting the security department. For example: The EMU car shed of Sanpada, Mumbai has been engaging private security for last 10 years. Four years back the FA&CAO/Central Railway refused to concur the contractual payments to the private security agency on the ground that, the money was being spent for security without the approval of the HOD of security department. The EMU car shed incharge had no problem in floating the security contract and engaging the security agencies of his choice. However when the credibility, performance and the standard of the security agency was checked, it was found that, the labour laws were not followed. The private security personal were not supervised by anybody, some of them had started indulging in pilferage/removal of railway property from the shed. And theft memos were not accepted by RPF as the shed was not under the security of RPF. Non acceptance of the theft memo made no deference to the incharge/management of the car shed. Every thing was ok with them.

If security officers do not come forward and agree to engage private security for certain railway units, the unit incharges will neglect the security officers and go for the private security on their own. Instead, security officers themselves should study various railway units, especially those where private security can be deployed and propose for private security for that unit. The existing manpower of the RPF in that unit should be utilized for shouldering the newly assigned responsibilities of protecting passengers and passengers area. Only skeleton staff and supervisors of RPF should be kept there. The tender of private security for these units should be floated by the security department only. The rules and regulations should be strictly adhered too. The same can be learnt from the counter parts in engineering and mechanical department. The private security guard of the security agency should be supervised by the RPF’s supervisors as site officers. Provision for adequate funds under demand No. 12-K-115 and primary unit No.32 of revenue expenditure should be made as far as possible in the budget itself.

Railway administration expects the security department to shoulder the additional responsibilities with no much increase in manpower. If you press more, you may get such more manpower, but definitely not the good wishes of the railway administration. The skill of security officers will be to find out those security duties which can be easily performed by the private security guards and to redeploy the RPF manpower engaged in those duties. The railway administration won’t mind spending on contractual payments and modernization, but would definitely hesitate in giving more manpower.

While going for private security, the security officers should take care that, the security of railways as a whole remains in their own hands. All expenditures by any railway unit on security, how so ever small they may be, should be spent only through demand No. 12-K-100 and not otherwise. In other words we should take care of all security arrangements of the entire railway establishment including those of Railway Electrification, Construction, exclusive railway colonies etc.

The above are not very well founded and permanent thoughts of mine. They just struck to my mind in response to the present debate on this issue. They are just a thesis. They require further brainstorming. Officers are welcome with some anti- thesis, so that fine tuned synthesis may come up, out of the brainstorming.

Please contribute your views.



Rambhau Pawar