Hyderabad: With no clarity on which police unit will provide the crucial security cover to the city’s future lifeline, the city is set to launch Hyderabad Metro rail most probably in the next two months.
Since HMRL is unwilling to pay ‘cost’ to Special Protection Force (SPF), it may happen that Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda police units might share the burden a specialized unit.
Chief secretary SP Singh had recently issued an order outlining distribution of security-related work responsibilities between police and the metro rail concessionaire L&T. The order was issued after three or four rounds of meetings between various stakeholders, including HMRL, police and L&T, in the last one year.
GO stated that internal security at each station junction was that of the concessionaire. In all probability, the external security responsibility might be given to respective commissionerates depending on the location of the stations junctions. Local police units might be given the brief to handle the external security of Metro stations and junctions. For Delhi Metro, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) provides integrated security cover.
When contacted, HMRL managing director NVS Reddy clarified that all stations would have foolproof security.
“There will be foolproof security system in place. Already, DGP and commissioners are working out the modalities(external security). There will be 360 degree cameras and other gadgets, which we cannot disclose for security reasons. We want to depend more on technology and not just manpower for security. We will announce the final mechanism in the next two or three weeks,” Reddy said, claiming it would be on par with Delhi Metro.
“SPF personnel are trained for the task (metro security), but the metro rail honchos found the services too costly,” said Director-General (SPF) Tejdeep Kaur Menon.