AP Assembly passes bill to create SSG for enhanced security to CM, family members

VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh government has introduced a bill to create a Special Security Group to protect the Chief Minister and his family members.

The bill was presented in the AP Legislative Assembly on Friday under which the APSSG cover will be provided to the CM and his family members.

The APSSG will be on the lines of a special protection group (SPG) of the Union government which is providing security and protection to top VVIPs. The bill was passed unanimously in the Assembly.    

The state police recently increased its security to Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy in view of the surcharged political situations. The vigilance wings proposed a further increase in the protection and security of the CM and his family. Hence the government decision to form a separate security group.    

AP home minister Taneti Vanita said the state-of-the-art training center would be set up to impart training to SSG personnel. They would be undertaking a highly specialised task requiring exceptional physical and mental skills, as distinct from regular policing.

Vanita said this law will be called the Andhra Pradesh Special Security Group Act, 2023. She explained that "Members of the immediate family of CM" means husband and wife, their children and parents, who would get ‘proximate security’.

It entails protection provided from close quarters, during journeys by road, rail, aircraft, watercraft on foot or by any other means of transport and shall include the places of functions, engagements, residence or halt and shall comprise ring-round teams, isolation cordons, the sterile zone around and the rostrum and access control to the person or members of his/her immediate family.

Every member of the APSSG shall be liable to serve in any part of the state or in any other part of India as well as outside India.

No member of the group shall be at liberty to resign from his appointment during the term of his engagements, or to withdraw himself from all or any of the duties of his appointment except with previous permission in writing from the prescribed authority.

Vanita said that it shall be the duty of every ministry and department of the state government or every local or other authority or every civil authority to act in aid of the director or any member of the group whenever called upon to do so in furtherance of the duties and responsibilities assigned to such member of the SSG.   

The home minister stated that further protection is given to SSG under which no suit, prosecution, or other legal proceeding shall lie against the group or any member thereof on whom powers have been conferred or duties imposed under this Act.