Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an increased allocation for the Special Protection Group (SPG)—the special force tasked with giving protection to the prime minister—in her budget, presented in the Lok Sabha on Saturday. The allocation was increased to Rs 600 crore from last year's Rs 540 crore.
At present, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the only person in the country to be protected by the SPG.
In November last year, the government withdrew the SPG cover of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her children Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. They were provided with Z-plus security by the CRPF.
The Congress chief and her children were included in the VVIP security list following an amendment in September 1991 in the SPG Act of 1988, after the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE terrorists.
The Gandhis' SPG protection was removed after 28 years. The Act, enacted by Parliament in 1988, was initially supposed to provide security to only the prime minister and former prime ministers of the country. However, in August last year, the government withdrew the SPG cover of former prime minister Manmohan Singh.
The need for a separate force for guarding the prime minister of the country was felt after Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own security guards on October 31, 1984.
SPG protectees, under the rules, are provided with guards, hi-tech vehicles, jammers and an ambulance in their carcade.
