All the talk of reviewing and rightsizing the security cover for the country’s VVIPs seems to be having just the opposite effect — the number of persons provided protection by the Centre has actually gone up by another 71 since the UPA came to power.

Most are in the Y-category, which comes with a personal security officer (PSO) and a house guard. Several recent additions, like former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati who have got Z-category security, appear to have been guided more by politics than security concerns.

The list also includes Gen N C Vij, who was Director-General of Military Operations during the Kargil conflict. Maninderjit Singh Bitta has had it since a militant attack when he was Indian Youth Congress president. Uttar Pradesh Congress leader Pramod Tiwari also gets security cover.

This, after the Union Home Ministry admitted in Delhi High Court last August that those seeking protection “overplay” the level of threat to become eligible for government accommodation and that such cases would “not be recommended.”

The court, which is hearing a PIL by advocate Rajeev Awasthi on law and order in Delhi, had been told of two important decisions taken as part of the New Policy on Security of Individuals in 2000:

• “No security will hence forth be provided merely on the ground that the person concerned has occupied a sensitive position in the past. In all cases where purely positional security has been provided to an individual, the same shall be withdrawn on demission of the concerned office by him.”

... contd.