The Central Industrial Security Force Act, 1968, is an act of the Indian Parliament through which the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) was raised on 10 March 1969. The CISF is a Central Armed Police Force which specialises in providing security and protection to industrial undertakings and other critical installations including nuclear plants, space centres and Delhi Metro. It is also the airport police of India.
The Government of India brought the bill in parliament in 1968 after the recommendation of a special commission, Mukherjee Commission, that was appointed to investigate a major fire at Heavy Engineering Corporation production plant in Ranchi and thereafter recommended constituting a federal force exclusively for the security of industries. After the approval of the President, the bill became an act on 2 December 1968 and came into force on 10 March 1969 when the CISF was raised with a strength of 2,800 personnel. It was first inducted at Fertilizer Corporation of India manufacturing plant in Trombay, Maharashtra, on 1 November 1969.
Originally the CISF was a force of watch and ward nature for maintaining vigilance and guard at the public sector industries, but it was made an armed force of the union after an amendment in 1983. The kidnapping and killing of H. L. Khera, general manager of CISF-protected Hindustan Machine Tools watch factory at Srinagar, by the members of Students Liberation Front in April 1989 led to the government to bring an amendment to the act to make it a duty of CISF personnel to protect and safeguard the employees of an enterprise where it is deployed. The CISF received a mandate to provide paid security consultancy services to both public and private sector enterprises through an amendment to the act in 1999. The last amendment to the act was brought in 2009 which made it possible for the CISF to provide its security services to private sector enterprises as well. The same amendment enhanced the territorial purview of the force by enabling the Central Government to deploy it outside of India.