The Visva Bharati University at Santiniketan — where trees and hedges have decided its boundaries for decades — has decided to outsource security for the campus, which will include deployment of armed guards. The institution has invited bids for the same, with the estimated value of the contract about ₹7 crore.
A notification inviting e-tenders was issued late last month. Bidders are required to have an average gross turnover of ₹20 crore per year with at least three contracts of not less than ₹1 crore each per year in the last five years.
The Rabindranath Tagore-founded institution is looking to deploy close to 300 personnel on a daily basis in the campus, and wants them to have served in the Armed Forces and Central Armed Police Forces. The security will include guards who will be armed with single/double barrel and pump action guns.
“Opening fire in any post should be the last option left with the armed guard, after shouting precautionary words and firing should start with blank cartridge only. Live cartridge should be fired initially aiming towards the sky, followed by firing below the knee,” the notice inviting tenders said.
The successful bidder will be hired, initially, for a period of one year. The agency, apart from providing round-the-clock security on the premises, will carry out patrolling, control movement of vehicles, keep a check on hawkers and vendors, and prevent ragging and also smoking and consumption of alcohol and “indecent activities” on the campus. Guards will also keep an eye on tourists.
The new arrangement is likely to be in place by November this year. While Visva Bharati could do with enhanced security — in 2004, Tagore’s Nobel Prize medal was stolen — it remains to be seen whether such elaborate arrangements armed guards included, go down well with the inmates and the local population. One of the top priorities of the present Vice-Chancellor, Bidyut Chakrabarty, appears to be securing the premises of the university by constructing high walls, a move that has not only upset old-timers but also led to a violent confrontation with the locals.
With the Calcutta High Court ruling last month that the authorities cannot build walls without the approval of a four-member committee set up by the court, it appears that the university now wants to throw a security ring around its property by entrusting its protection to an outside agency.
