Despite stipulations on basic salary and working conditions, security firms continue flouting rules
As a white BMW enters, a security guard, looking after a posh housing complex in South Delhi opens the gate and the car zooms in leaving behind a trail of smoke. It is a daily affair for Govind Gupta, one of the security guards kept to safeguard the residential complex. Govind is from Balia, Uttar Pradesh. His wife and a daughter are back home. He earns Rs 7,000 per month without any weekly or monthly off, and lives in a dark room in Jaitpur, on the border of Delhi. Govind somehow manages to send Rs 1,500 back home.
Same story is of Mahesh, a pot-bellied security guard kept to protect a newspaper building at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg. He receives a meagre sum of Rs 7,000 without any weekly off in the entire month. He has two kids to support who live in his native village near Faizabad. The kids recently joined school. Mahesh’s expenses are growing but not his salary. He owns a bigha of land at his native place but to cultivate any crop on it, he needs time and monetary investment — both are hard to come by. Both these security guards work for agencies on a contractual basis. There are a number of security guards like them who are struggling to make ends meet.
With increasing crime, violence, the security business has become one of the most flourishing businesses in India, providing security to every office, school, residential complex, giving security 24x7 but the underbelly of this business needs attention. The circumstances and the surroundings in which these security guards work are not conducive.
Taking the case of Delhi, the salary these guards receive is below the legal minimum wage for unskilled labour by the Delhi Government, which is Rs 8,086 per month.
The security business in Delhi has been operating under the Delhi Private Security Agencies (Regulation) Rules, 2009. Under this Act, a security agency takes a licence for its operations, which remains valid for five years. There are 338 licenced security agencies in the national Capital. But most of these companies have been flagrantly violating the rules and regulations of the PSARA guidelines. Week offs, insurance, perks are a far-fetched dream for these guards hired on contractual basis. In the meanwhile, many of these guards are not even acquainted with the rights and duties made for them under the above mentioned guidelines. They have been working for the sake of getting employment which is still a dream for many, thus, encouraging agencies to hire people on wages less than the stipulated amount.
Ankur Chaudhary of Pro-Man Securitech says, “Security agencies are not complying with the laws of minimum wages. The existing law has no concrete steps for the salary, benefits, safety and security of the guards hired on contractual basis. Most of agencies do not even provide insurance to their employees (guards).”
The security agencies have also been violating the established parameters for engaging a security guard. Thus, untrained and unskilled youths from villages and remote areas, who are in search of jobs in the city, end up doing these petty jobs.
Ashok Yadav, regional manager of G4S, one of the top security agencies in Delhi, says, “The major problem of this industry is that it is disorganised and the Government is least bothered about the welfare of these security guards and their wages. Security agencies are violating guidelines with impunity.”
Yadav stresses on the fact that the guidelines for running a security agencies should be made more stringent so that no violation can take place and the Government must keep tabs on the functioning of these security agencies. Those found violating rules, regarding wages and other benefits, should not be allowed to get away scot-free.