Mumbai: With Mumbai having witnessed several disasters requiring specialised security intervention in recent years, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has now undertaken the task to train its security guards to handle enhanced IT enabled security systems along with basic fire fighting technics.
The civic body will handpick the best of its security personnel who are educated and updated for training all other security guards.
The chief officer of Disaster Management Unit of BMC Mahesh Narvekar said: “Total 200 security men have been trained till last year to handle a disaster like situations. They were trained to be part of the proposed "City Disaster Response Force", BMC's own disaster force.
At present, the security guards, are required to provide security to civic installations and civic staffers in not just the civic headquarters but also at all its ward offices, civic-run hospitals and schools too.
Meanwhile, elaborating on the move additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said that times have changed and every BMC security personnel need to keep up with these changing times. "A job of a security guard should no more be just standing and guarding the building and frisking every visitor.
We expect each and every security personnel to enhance their skills and become alert. For this, we will shortlist the most educated and updated security personnel in the force to train the others.
These training will enable the security guards to understand and learn to handle any kind of IT-enabled security installations, handle CCTV monitoring etc."
He added, " We also want them to undergo training for basic fire fighting. This will help use reduced response time to any fire mishap until fire brigade reaches."
The civic body has been chalking out plans for the past five years to train its security force along the lines of the State Response Police Force (SRPF) and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).
Between 2018 and 2019, total 200 security personnel of BMC were trained on lines of NDRF to make them capable of rescuing people during disasters like earthquake, flood, fire and building collapse in the city.
