Eastern Army Commander calls for ex-Army officers' recruitment for industrial security

Kolkata: Lt Gen Abhay Krishna, General Officer Commanding in Chief (GOC-in-C) of the Eastern Command, on Friday called upon the industrial houses to employ retired Army officers to strengthen their industrial security apparatus and meet the growing need of trained manpower for it. According to him, the officers retiring from the Army at an early age are not only young but are also trained to deal with any kind of emergency.

"I request you to try out our retired Army officers for your industries' security because of the excellence in our security. It will serve you the purpose of manpower for which lot of money is spent," the GOC-in-C told the top industry officials at Industrial Safety and Surveillance Conclave organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

When asked to elaborate, he explained, "We also have our establishments where all these aspects are supplied to us. Be it fire safety or disasters, our people are highly trained about how to handle it and carry out surveillance, monitoring and intelligence which are applicable for safeguarding the industrial infrastructure. So the same thing is applicable there also."

He added, "Their services should be utilised by the industry instead of getting the untrained people employed just because somebody wears a badge on chest for security. These people are not trained in those areas. You have a trained manpower in all the departments: technology, cyber security, intelligence gathering, fire safety, physical security that applies us in day to day life."

On the intelligence gathering in industrial security the GOC-in-C underlined, "You ought to have intelligence about everything. Don’t you have threat from a terrorist attack? Don’t you have a threat from the shooters? How do you gain until and unless you are environmentally aware you will not be able to identify the threat which may come all of a sudden? My experience says you should learn from your loopholes."