Rare upturn: security business is booming

The only sector booming in this downturn era seems to be the security services industry. From being a largely unorganised sector, the security services industry is now attracting corporate giants, reports Sidhartha Roy.

The only sector booming in this downturn era seems to be the security services industry. From being a largely unorganised sector, the security services industry is now attracting corporate giants like GMR Group and DLF Group.

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“This is a Rs 25,000 crore industry that employs 55 lakh people and is witnessing a growth of 25 per cent,” said Kunwar Vikram Singh, Chairman of Central Association of Private Security Industry (CAPSI).

“Nine big foreign companies are fishing for joint ventures in India and big corporates are planning to start their own security agencies,” Singh said. “The GMR Group has started Raxa Security Services and DLF has started the security company, TerraForce.”

Raxa provides security at Indira Gandhi International Airport in addition to Central Industrial Security Force. Singh said many corporates were now contacting security companies to get their risk analysis done. Many even want to hire professional security agencies from Israel, he said.

GMR Group’s Bangalore-based Raxa Security Services has its own academy spread over 100 acres to train rural youths as security marshals. GMR Group has built the new airport at Hyderabad and is modernising the Delhi airport.

The Academy imparts induction training to marshals (eight weeks’ duration for matriculates) and security supervisors (10 weeks’ duration for graduates), in addition to organising refresher training programmes. The Academy has a capacity to train 200 recruits in each batch.