Transport security has, forever been, an area of concern worldwide. It is often due to the fear of tampering with consignments, for terrorism or other illegitimate purposes, including cyber intrusion, criminal attacks aimed at supply chains, and hijacking for financial gain. Compared to the 1990s, attacks on transportation systems all over the globe have more than doubled in the last two decades, prompting the government to discuss future strategies to keep transport systems safe. Security agencies have been brainstorming on the issue for some time now, and one of the proposals being discussed is the need for setting up a Comprehensive Transport Security Framework (CTSF) in the country.
At the moment, there is no national framework that holistically looks at transport security even though rails, roads, waterways and even pipelines are major hotspots of transport security breaches in the country. The Commission of Railway Safety (CRS) for rail security, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) for airways, and a three-tier coastal security ring all along the Indian coastline have been set up to safeguard the respective transportation areas.
However, the National Road Safety Policy, which highlights the policy initiatives to be taken by the government to improve road safety activities, does not mention any security measures formulated for roads. Besides, police being a state subject, the scope of investigations gets limited when other states are involved. Of late, government sources pointed out that public order is another cause hampering road transportation.
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Meanwhile, pipeline transport security is often threatened due to oil pilferage and oil spills posing a threefold menace — fire hazards, groundwater pollution from percolation, and air pollution due to evaporation. Importantly, such siphoned crude oil is sold to illegal businesses.
While roads and railways appear to be significant trading mediums, around 95 per cent of the country’s trading by volume and 70 per cent by value is done through maritime transport, as per government estimates. “Major challenges faced at the ports are inadequate cargo-handling equipment, lesser road networks within the port areas, limited IT systems and inefficiency due to poor hinterland connectivity through rail, road, highways and inland waterways,” said a senior government official.
A suggestion to create a unit under the ministry of cooperation that can centrally monitor rules and regulations while guiding all land, water and air transporters is under consideration after it was suggested at a recent gathering of police chiefs and central security agencies. A comprehensive transport security framework can involve multiple stakeholders, it was pointed out.
The transport terror history in the country is a long-listed one. Several incidents, including cargo bomb explosion crashing Toronto-Mumbai Air India Flight 182 killing 329 passengers, 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, and the 2019 car-bomb attack on a military convoy in Jammu & Kashmir, raise a question about the country’s transportation security.
Unlike India, many countries possess transportation security units which oversee security-related matters involving transporters. “These models can be studied to learn best practices on creating the proposed framework,” said a government official. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), an agency of the US Department of Homeland Security, regulates transportation security within and connecting to the United States. It was set up in response to the 9/11 attacks to strengthen airport security procedures and to consolidate air travel security under a dedicated federal administrative law enforcement agency. Canada’s Transport Canada, the Critical Infrastructure Centre (CISC) in Australia and Russia’s Ministry of Transport of Russian Federation are other similar security authorities built to supervise the transportation systems uniformly.