NOIDA: Most housing societies in Noida and Ghaziabad have guards who have hardly undergone a mandatory training in handling untoward situations, officials of various security agencies have told TOI. This, they said, is because a majority of societies don’t want to spend much on hiring prominent security agencies and end up deploying guards who lack training and are hired mostly on the basis of reference.
Officials agreed that the recent incident in Lotus Boulevard in Noida, where a resident was attacked by a group of guards after an argument turned violent, could have been handled in a better way had they been properly trained.
Data sourced from various agencies reveal that though Gautam Budh Nagar has around 150 private security agencies, there are only about 20 that provide professional training to their employees. A senior police officer admitted that though every private guard needs to undergo training by a retired serviceman under the Private Security Agencies (Regulation) Act, 2005, most security agencies limit it to a few indoor lectures and sessions.
“The issue of training crops up multiple times. But the fact is that most societies resort to cutting costs when it comes to hiring a security agency,” said Sohrab Khan, a field officer with a prominent agency. “A cheap agency means cheap labour. And cheap labour means less experience, lack of training and education,” he added.
Agencies that offer security at low rates usually hire guards for anything between Rs 10,000 and Rs 12,000 a month — in contrast a professional agency pays Rs 14,000-15,000. Most of the guards hired by these agencies come from faraway villages and small towns to earn a living in the NCR cities. Hiring mostly happens through references. And since there has been a construction boom over the past few years, getting the job of a guard isn’t difficult.
A guard working at a condominium in Noida Sector 128 told TOI he was hired by his agency simply because his brother worked there. “There was hardly any training. Just a few lectures and indoor sessions,” he said.
Needless to say, these guards hardly enjoy any benefits such as PF or allowances. “Situations like the one in Lotus Boulevard happen rarely. But when they do, guards need to be trained in handling them,” said Swati Aggarwal, a former office-bearer of the AOA in Grand Omaxe society.
Ghanshyam Jha, who owns Arania Services Pvt Ltd in Ghaziabad, provides security guards to 22 housing societies across Delhi-NCR. “In our agency, a mandatory 100-hour training is provided to each guard before he or she is inducted. We look for several qualities in them, most important being the ability to handle pressure situations and respond to provocations,” he said. “They could work at the society gate or be given the job of patrolling. But sometimes, our inability in assigning specific jobs goes wrong, leading to incidents like the one in Noida recently,” Jha added.
“One takes the job of a guard by compulsion, not by choice,” summed up Rajbala, whose son Dinesh is one of the nine arrested in connection with the Lotus Boulevard incident. Dinesh, who wanted to pursue a BA course, took up the job of a security guard to fund his education, his family said.
With inputs from Abhijay Jha in Ghaziabad
