'100 per cent FDI in private security firms unwise'

The BJP says the move to raise the FDI cap will be a threat to the country’s security

The BJP on Saturday opposed the idea of raising FDI cap in private security sector, saying it could prove detrimental to the country’s security.

“Any change in regulation that enables foreign nationals or companies to directly own and control private security and detective service agencies in the country can pose a serious threat to the national security,” senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said here. 

He pointed out that more than 50 lakh private security personnel were deployed across the country at thousands of establishments, including sites of strategic significance like the CSIR labs, DRDO complexes, private ports, oil refineries, power projects, gas pipelines, private airports, IITs/IIMs and even national monuments like the Red Fort and Qutub Minar.

“We can’t understand how the Centre can allow 100 per cent foreign ownership in the private security sector, as they are deployed at highly sensitive sites, where they can access technological equipment that could be misused to compromise national security,” Joshi said. 

Joshi opposed the move to enhance the FDI cap, saying it was difficult to understand the rationale behind allowing FDI in the private security sector that too by circumventing the Private Security Agencies Regulation (PSAR) Act (2005).

His statement comes in the wake of Union Ministry of Finance’s move to enhance the FDI in the private security sector, after accepting Mayaram committee’s recommendations.

The BJP leader lamented that it was disappointing to note Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who was once at the helm of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and well informed about these concerns, has chosen to endorse the Mayaram Committee report in the garb of ‘liberalising the FDI regime’ and  forwarded the recommendations to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and the Union Ministry of Commerce, for changes in the consolidated FDI policy. 

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