Parliament security head's post vacant for 45 days, 40% crunch at other levels

Tribune News Service

Animesh Singh

New Delhi, December 16

With questions being raised over the security standards in the new Parliament building in the aftermath of the December 13 breach, it is reliably learnt that the topmost post of Joint Secretary (Security), responsible for securing the entire complex, is vacant for the past 45 days.

The vacancy arose after incumbent Raghubir Lal, a 1997-batch IPS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, was transferred to his home state as Additional DG (law and order) in the first week of November. A director-level officer had since been functioning on the post on a temporary basis, said sources.

What’s all the more striking is that an almost 40 per cent staff crunch exists in the Parliament’s security establishment, whose current strength is 230. While manpower shortage is seriously hampering the challenging task of ensuring security in the high-risk complex, it’s also noteworthy that when two intruders—Sagar Sharma and Manoranjan D—opened gas canisters inside the Lok Sabha chamber, the smoke alarms didn’t get activated, the sources said. Though the new Parliament building is equipped with high-level security apparatus with special focus on artificial intelligence, officials complained that no amount of technology could substitute manpower. Questions were also raised over an about Rs 30 crore cut in the annual budget of the Parliament complex, the sources said. Most importantly though, it was the huge volume of visitors, mostly the guests of MPs whose recommendations for passes were difficult for the secretariat to ignore, which made frisking everybody a difficult task, the sources said. The two intruders are learnt to have taken advantage of this “loophole”.

Another issue highlighted internally was that instead of the Parliament security staff, the secretariat’s administration wing was summoning the vehicles of lawmakers within the new complex, which was leading to a lot of coordination issues, something that should be highly avoidable, the sources said.

While the Delhi Police conduct frisking, the Parliament secretariat’s watch and ward staff keeps an eye on the movement of visitors inside the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers. Though the issuance of visitors’ passes has been stopped after the security breach, the movement of the staff of the parliamentarians was yet to be regulated, the sources said.

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