HI-TECH HOUSE: BJP MP Manvendra Singh and Congress MP Kuldeep Vishnoi come out of Parliament on Wednesday. (PTI)

New Delhi, July 21: The US responded to the September 11 terror attacks by strip-searching visitors, even if they were VIPs; India has reacted to the December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament by slowly converting it into a fortress.

Strict electronic surveillance has been put in place to make unauthorised entry into Parliament’s precincts difficult.

MPs, journalists, Parliament staff, security officials and employees of all allied agencies are being issued Radio Frequency Tags, an identity card containing their personal data. Flap barriers installed at various gates will not open unless the tags are flashed.

As a person sporting the tag on his body approaches the entry gates, his photograph, name and designation will appear on a monitor. The flap barrier will open automatically if the photograph and information match.

Security officials have set up a closed-circuit system to monitor movement inside and outside Parliament. Senior officers manning the system can see everyone inside the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, press gallery, visitors gallery, diplomats gallery and corridors, right up to the neighbouring Vijay Chowk road that adjoins Rashtrapati Bhavan.

But some journalists are not too happy with the tags as they feel security officers might use them to keep tabs on whom they meet; since they encounter many ministers and politicians, tabs might even be kept on their sources, thereby compromising them. These sources may no longer divulge information once the system is up and running for fear of exposure.

The tags will cost around Rs 1,500 each. They will be issued to all those who carry permanent identity cards, but a special entry pass is being designed for casual visitors. The reception pass will have a bar code with sensor; the flap barrier will open for those carrying this pass.

The tags and new reception passes will be ready only for the next Parliament session, but electronic gadgets worth Rs 120 crore have already been installed. For those entering in vehicles, “boom barriers” have been installed at the main gates. The barrier, a metallic bamboo-type pole, will lift only for authorised persons.

Even if someone gets past the “boom barriers” illegally, they will have to contend with bollards some yards away. Shaped like a metallic cylinder, they are buried underneath and can be brought up by security personnel at the touch of a button to trap a vehicle.

If a terrorist manages to sidestep the first two obstructions, he will have to face “tyre killers” next – these are iron spikes concealed underground which can pop up suddenly to puncture the errant vehicle’s tyres.

Terrorists will also have to contend with roadblocks – heavy metallic red-and-white sheets that can emerge from the surface to stop a vehicle that dodges the first three barriers. All obstacles are installed at 10-metre gaps.

A joint parliamentary committee on security headed by the then deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha, P.M. Sayeed, took these decisions to strengthen security in the wake of the December 2001 attack on Parliament.

Senior Congress leader Shivraj Patil, now the home minister, was a member of the panel as were his Lok Sabha colleagues V.K. Malhotra (BJP), the Telugu Desam Party’s Yerran Naidu, CPM’s Basudev Acharya, BJP’s Anadi Charan Sahu and the Samajwadi Party’s Ramji Lal Suman. The Rajya Sabha had three representatives on the committee: former Chief Justice of India Ranganath Mishra, General Shankar Roy Chowdhury and the BJP’s B.P. Singhals.