No Cash Refill at ATMs in Cities After 9pm: Govt Upgrades Security Guidelines After Cash Van Attacks

New Delhi: Following a spate of attacks on cash vans, the union government has upgraded security guidelines to ensure safe passage of cash and other valuables. The guidelines, once approved by law ministry, might see ammendments to the Private Security Agencies Regulation Act, 2005.

There are 8,000 cash handling agencies in India transporting Rs 15,000 crores of cash every day, as per official data.

As per the released guidelines, security agencies handling cash transportation will have to upgrade security features, guarding facilities, hours of operation, and guard training. No operations of such vans will be allowed after 9 pm in urban areas, after 6 pm in rural and in Naxal areas operations will be only from 9 in the morning to 4 in the evening. Live GPS tracking will also be mandatory. Interestingly, no specific guidelines have been made for the state of Jammu and Kashmir which saw maximum attacks on cash vehicles in recent past.

"We have not made any seperate arrangement for Kashmir. The urban-rural rules will be applicable there," a top MHA officer said.

The SOPs governing cash handling were first drafted in 2016 and were finalised on Thursday after Home Minister Rajnath Singh chaired a meeting on police modernisation and related issues. Cabinet had recently cleared a 25060 crore police modernisation proposal and government hopes to implement some of the proposals by next financial year.

"Home Minister wanted that jawans on the border should be the focus of the police modernisation efforts and hence that is what is being conveyed to the states and the central paramilitary forces," a top MHA officer said.

Central forces will see it's central allocations double after finance ministry agreed to provide Rs 1,054 crores for two years as part of modernisation plan 3. In plan 2, the allocation was Rs 200 crores per year.

"Fifty Percent of this amount will be for crpf and rest for other forces," an officer said.

As part of the modernisation project, MHA is looking to augment policing in areas of Internal security, women security, helicopter hiring, national sattelite network, CCTNS etc.