“The priority has been fixed by the government. We can only go in the priority sectors decided by the government. We have been asked to focus on the IT sector,” said CISF’s Additional Director General Manjari Jaruhar. “Hotels are low on our priority right now. They have security from the state governments and they can always hire private security on their own.” While IT, power and oil industries have been put on the top priority list, five-star hotels are on Priority 3 as of now.

In the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, which targeted the Taj and the Oberoi hotels, many reputed hotel chains, including Taj and Trident, had sought CISF cover. While the Taj Group had sought CISF security for Taj Hotel in Mumbai, the Trident Hotels had asked for a similar cover at eight locations, including Mumbai. Other prominent hotels seeking CISF security included Marriott in Mumbai and Jaypee Group of Hotels at eight locations.

“We have got 107 requests from private sector so far. Out of these, 33 requests are from industries falling in Priority 1 which includes IT, power and oil industries. We have provided cover to two industries so far,” CISF Director General N R Das said. “We don’t deploy our force on every request we get from the private sector. We first make an analysis of the threat perception. We study things like location of the industry, the area, and the type of industry,” he said, adding that there had been a surge in requests for CISF cover post-26/11.