“Industry should work towards more indigenisation of products and equipment in order to meet the growing challenges on security and surveillance” said Inspector General S P Sharma, PTM, TM, Commander, Coast Guard Region (East) in his theme address at the Conference on Surveillance & Security organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Chennai recently.
Security forces should be provided with the best in class equipment and technology to cope up with the new tactics employed by the state and non-state actors, said Sharma.
Sharma said that increasing incidents of piracy in and around the Lakshadweep Islands have added a whole new dimension to the threat perception. The piracy today having shifted from Somalia coast to Southeast Arabian Seas has direct implications on our maritime security, he added.
The human dimension play a key role in addressing security issues, said N Vittal, IAS (Retd), Former Chief Vigilance Commissioner, Government of India in his special address. Employees should be treated compassionately and they should be given the freedom to express their feelings. Discontented employess are the potential threat for breach of security in any discipline, said Vittal.
Speaking on the technology dimension on security, Vittal said that dual technology for internal security systems for both military and civil use would help in addressing security related issues to a large extent. The legal dimension, where, the enforcement of law can play an important role in controlling the security threats, he added.
Lt Gen Gautam Banerjee, AVSM, YSM, Commandant, Officers Training Academy, Chennai in his keynote address said that investment in security needs to be enhanced keeping in view the rapid development in the country. In a country like India, where the armed forces are strong, the adversaries would find alternate ways to destabilise the country and the internal security is the weak point to target, said Banerjee.
He urged the industrial sector to strengthen their internal security as industries are the key driving force of national development and it may become a soft target by the adversaries to destabilise our economy.
P K Mohapatra, past chairman, CII Southern Region in his opening address stressed for a public-private partnership approach, wherein, the security agencies in the Government sector can collaborate with their counterparts in the private sector to develop new models on security and surveillance. “We have technology, infrastructure and people in place, but the most important thing which we need today is the cultural & political infrastructure and the social will to move forward and implement security measures,” said Mohapatra.
