Congress asks why CISF for Ramdev's park; No favour done, says government

New Delhi, May 3: The Congress on Tuesday questioned the need to deploy the CISF to guard a food park belonging to Baba Ramdev at Haridwar as the government maintained that it was "no special favour" to the yoga guru or to his manufacturing unit.

Answering supplementaries from Congress member Jyotiraditya Scindia in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said: "We have a long list of 11,000 private enterprises and industries that have been provided with security cover by CISF personnel".

"You took the name of only one company. It will not be right to say that we have done a favour to one individual or only his firm," Rijiju said, adding that the decision to deploy Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel at Ramdev's food park at Haridwar was done following "established procedures and specific inputs from the Intelligence Bureau".

Following a union home ministry order, the CISF has started providing full-time security cover to the food park from March.

Rijiju said the decision to provide security cover to private enterprises by CISF was taken in 2009 when the law pertaining to CISF personnel was amended by the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime.

"Moreover, for the private firm you named, we have deployed only 35 CISF personnel. It is the lowest on the table. CISF personnel have been deployed in various private enterprises," the minister added.

Scindia also wanted to know why Baba Ramdev's park was provided with CISF personnel, while some airports were denied.

In reply, the minister said that for deployment of CISF personnel in airports a well laid down procedure is followed.

"For example, for Srinagar airport, after assessing the ground reality, the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) has been deployed," Riiju said.

Another Congress member Kamal Nath raised the issue of shortage of CISF personnel, to which the minister said the government will be soon recruiting about two lakh personnel.

IANS