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The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has asked the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) to take security charge of the Parliament building from the Delhi Police. The CISF will first conduct a survey of the premises prior to the deployment of its security and fire wing.
This comes a week after the December 13 Parliament security breach, in which two individuals jumped into the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors’ gallery, and opened canisters emitting yellow smoke.
Here are 10 things you need to know about the CISF.
In June 1964, a devastating fire had broken out in Ranchi’s Heavy Engineering Corporation plant, with reports suggesting sabotage. This led to the appointment of the Justice Mukherjee Commission which recommended the establishment of a dedicated industrial protection force. Thus, the CISF was set up by an Act of Parliament on March 10, 1969.
As the name suggests, the CISF was created “for the better protection and security of Industrial undertakings.” It was first inducted at the Fertilizer Corporation of India manufacturing plant in Trombay, Maharashtra, on November 1, 1969. Initially, its remit was restricted to protecting government-owned industries, but this was expanded to include joint-ventures and private undertakings in 2009. It also provides consultancy services to the private sector.
It is one of seven Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) under the MHA — the other six being the Border Security Force, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, the Sashastra Seema Bal, the Assam Rifles, the National Security Guard, and the Central Reserve Police Force.
‘Security’ also includes fire coverage, especially given CISF’s origin story. The first fire wing unit with a strength of 53 personnel was Inducted in Cochin’s FACT on April 16, 1970. Eventually a separate fire service cadre within the force was set up in 1991, which today is India’s largest, and best trained and equipped fire fighting force. It is also the only CAPF with a dedicated fire fighting wing.
Over the years, CISF’s strength and remit has significantly evolved to include much more than simply guarding factories and industrial premises. Today, the force is deployed in over 350 locations across the country, in diversified areas such as atomic energy and space installations, sea-ports, steel plants, coal fields, hydro-electric and thermal power plants, defence production units, fertiliser and chemical industries, RBI’s note-printing mints, heritage monuments such as the Taj Mahal, more than 60 airports, Delhi Metro, and other important government buildings. Notably, it is a compensatory cost force — which means that it bills its clients for the services it provides.
It is the CAPF with the largest public interface. Thus, not only do CISF personnel need to be highly trained and capable, they also need to have skills of dealing with the public, often massive crowds of people.
In recent years, the CISF has also become involved in providing security cover to VIPs. This came after a parliamentary committee recommendation to the MHA in 2018 to relieve the burden on the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), and the National Security (NSG), who have historically been tasked with this duty. In 2020, the government decided to withdraw the NSG from security duties, so that it can focus on its original mandate of “counter-terror and anti-hijack duties.”
In 2012, the CISF had raised a unit of marine commandos to protect merchant vessels against piracy in the high seas. However, this plan was dropped in 2016, in light of the contentious Enrica Lexie case, in which two Italian marines shot and killed two Indian fishermen off the coast of Kerala in 2012. This exposed multiple legal tangles of deploying uniformed forces in the high seas, something which the government wanted to avoid.
The CISF operates with a sanctioned strength of 1.8 lakh personnel. This is exponentially more than the force’s strength at the time of inception, which was roughly 3,000 personnel only. Headquartered in Delhi, it is headed by an Indian Police Service officer with the rank of Director-General. The force is divided into nine sectors (Airport, North, North-East, East, West, South, Training, South-East, Central), in addition to its Fire Service Wing.
CISF has the largest percentage of women in its force, in comparison to all other CAPFs. The first batch of women constables was inducted in 1987, and the first woman officer joined as Asstt. Comdt in 1989. CISF is currently headed by Special DG Nina Singh, the first woman to occupy the post.
