Police investigation found out that those agencies greased the palms of the officials earlier and managed to operate without following any prescribed norms and renewing their licences. These agencies had appointed elderly and physically unfit people as guards and collected as much as Rs 20,000 to 25,000 per guard from their client company. 

But they paid about 10,000 or less to the guards as monthly salary. “During our investigation, we found that about 300 agencies have been operating without proper licences. They failed to adhere to the norms prescribed and had been exploiting both their clients and employees,” a police official attached to the state police told DTNext. 

Sources said the officials are supposed to do a background check on each applicant’s criminal antecedents, facility available to run the agency and the training capability of the agency before issuing licence. Instead, they teamed up with the applicants and helped them get licences, sources added. 

“Most of these private security agencies are headquartered in Chennai. They have been running the agency without renewing their licence for several years. They do not provide mandatory training to the security personnel and take elderly and physically unfit people as they are cheaper,” the official added.