Union Home Minister Amit Shah, on Tuesday, asked operators of private security agencies to take advantage of government-sponsored schemes to undertake welfare initiatives like health insurance, medical health check-up and pension for private guards. He also asked the agencies to hire National Cadet Corps (NCC) trained guards so that those employed have some basic training on security.

'Huge potential in the sector'

While launching a private security agency licensing portal initiated by the Ministry of Home Affairs, he spoke about every security guard having a ‘Jan Dhan’ bank account to manage salary disbursement and there should be no cash transactions with them.
While talking about PM Modi’s vision of a $5 trillion economy, Shah said that this sector has huge potential to create about 2-3 crore job opportunities.

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He also said that there are around 90 lakh private security guards in the country while the total number of police and paramilitary forces is around 30 lakh. That means, there are 24 per cent police and 76 per cent private security guards. While talking about the portal he said that there is immense scope of improvement and that the government is happy to accept suggestions for the same from the controlling officers of all the states. He also urged the agencies to get themselves registered as soon as possible.

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Shah talked about various schemes

Shah said, "You should undertake some welfare schemes like regular health check-up of private security guards. You should enrol them under the government-sponsored Rs 2 lakh insurance scheme (Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana) and pay the yearly premium of Rs 22 for each guard. The government will pay rest of the amount of Rs 350."

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"Similarly, you should also make an arrangement so that each private guard comes under the cover of Atal Pension Yojana (a government back scheme)," he said. 

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(With PTI inputs)