India Inc. gears to face clear and present danger

mumbai: picture this: it's 10:10 a.m. on a normal working day and you're gradually settling down with your day's chores at office. suddenly, the phone rings. ``there's a bomb inside your office premises,'' an unidentified caller mutters into your left ear before abruptly disconnecting the line. if this seems like a scene straight out of a hollywood thriller, listen to this.very recently, an uncannily similar scene was witnessed by the ceo's office of a leading television channel based in andheri. what followed after the call was near-mayhem, with the channel staffers being asked to evacuate the premises in the shortest possible time. inevitably, the local police was summoned, which, in turn, called in specialists with sniffer dogs. although the police later declared the call to be a hoax, the question doing the rounds of the industry is: what if such a call is for real? while various alternatives are still being discussed at bureaucratic breakfasts, india inc. has already taken a step forward. instead of paying mere lip-service, leading indian corporates-from blue-chip multinational banks to local five-star hotels-have set the ball rolling by listing items on their security agenda on a priority basis. so much so, that most of them have formed their own specialised protection teams comprising-hold your breath- marshals, the kind that caters to highly skilled emergency operations on aircraft and buildings of national importance. and in most cases, these marshals are being chosen from among the company's own employees themselves, after imparting them with rigorous state-of-the-art training sessions. leading the pack is bombay house, headquarters of the rs 36,000 crore-tata group, where dozens of tata employees are currently being trained to tackle any kind of emergency. says freddy talaty, assistant company secretary of the associated building company, which owns bombay house, ``each of the employees whom we've selected are undergoing rigorous training exercises. once the process is completed, bombay house will be fully geared up to take on any contingency arising out of terrorist attacks, bomb threats or fire.'' following closely behind are several other top-of-the-line firms- standard chartered grindlays bank, j.m. morgan stanley, lubrizol, le meridien, ilfs and marriott renaissance. although the list is exhaustive, most of the corporates that tnn spoke to refused to be named. ``it's a highly sensitive issue with threats and rumours emerging every now and then after the world trade center attacks on september 11. as a policy matter, we've decided not to disclose details of our security arrangements for all our offices in india,'' says the all-india security head of one, requesting anonymity for himself and his company. security experts say that the primary focus of these corporates is the evacuation of their own staff in the shortest possible time in an emergency. ``previously, most corporates were a bit complacent since an emergency mostly meant a fire inside the building. but now, with rumours of anthrax and terrorist attacks looming large on the horizon, nobody wants to take a chance,'' says aneel khanna from topsgrup, a mumbai-based private security firm which has recently conducted several training sessions on evacuation drills. mr khanna goes on to add that the concept of a contingency plan is not new to indian corporates. ``but what has triggered the trend was the wtc attacks which acted as a catalyst and woke up a dormant crisis management issue,'' he says. ``which explains why as many as 150 companies from all over india are now in the process of beefing up their emergency procedures.'' with the u.s.-taliban strife showing no signs of abating in the immediate future, india inc., clearly, is taking no chances. well, at least not this time.