Lack of Security Staff In The Parliament Raises Concerns: Report
The Indian Parliament witnessed a shocking security breach on December 13 when two men jumped inside the Lok Sabha from the visitor”s gallery and set off smoke canisters, leading to a panic situation in the Parliament. The incident triggered huge debate in and out of the house, with the main Congress party attributing the incident to “unemployment” and “inflation”, linking it to the policies of the BJP-led government.
Now veteran journalist Pankaj Pachauri has shared a report published in the Tribune that attributes the security breach to hiring cessation. The report has learned that the topmost post of Joint Secretary (Security), responsible for securing the entire complex, is vacant since the 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 has provisionally held the post of Joint Secretary (Security) since then, the report said. Moreover, almost 40 percent of
Security posts in the parliament are vacant, which in turn affects the efficiency of the system. Citing the anomaly in the current system, the report pointed out that the smoke alarms had not been activated when the two intruders—Sagar Sharma and Manoranjan D—opened gas canisters inside the Lok Sabha chamber.
The security system in the parliament will not function properly without adequate manpower, the officials said. Parliament witnessed MPs raising questions regarding a Rs 30 crore cut in the annual budget of the Parliament complex, despite the increasing number of visitors.
The sources also raised concerns about the vehicles of lawmakers being summoned by the secretariat’s administration wing instead of Parliament security staff. This procedure leads to a variety of coordination problems. The issuance of visitor”s passes has been stopped since the incident.
But the irregular movement of the staff of the parliamentarians is still a concern.
