AFTER AIRPORTS AND NUCLEAR FACILITIES, CISF TO GUARD RAMDEV’S FOOD PARK

NEW DELHI: Yoga guru Ramdev’s food park in Haridwar has become the eighth private sector client of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) that guards important government installations such as nuclear plants and airports across the country.

Ramdev himself is a Z-category protectee of the central paramilitary forces. In his annual press address on Tuesday, CISF chief Surender Singh said that the paramilitary force has got formal orders from the government in this regard. The force has deployed 35 armed personnel for anti-terror duties at the Patanjali Food and Herbal Park Private Ltd of Ramdev in Haridwar, he added. Like all the government and pri- vate sector units, the food park has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the CISF to bear the cost of the deployment.

“The food park is paying us `40 lakh per month,” said a CISF official. In 2015, the CISF had sent its contingent to the food park on temporary basis after protests had erupted there.

The force has now taken formal charge of securing the facility. After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the government had amended the act to enable the CISF to provide security to private clients as well. Electronics City in Bengaluru, Infosys campuses in Bengaluru, Mysore and Pune, Reliance Refinery and Petrochemicals in Jamnagar, Coastal Gujarat Power in Mundra are among other private clients of the CISF.