Delayed NATGRID may work to full capacity soon

New Delhi: The much-touted National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), which was expected to become fully operational by the start of this year, is still not yet completely ready with officials stating that it will start working in its full capacity “soon”.

Officials said that the physical infrastructure of NATGRID, which will be based in two places, Delhi and Hyderabad, was suppose to become fully operational by 31 March, but this deadline is likely to be extended due to “unforeseen” reasons.

The earlier deadline for its functioning was January 2020. In March 2016, the then Minister of State for Home Affairs, Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary, had told Parliament that the timeline for implementation of the NATGRID project was 30 June 2017.

Also, the technological and software part of the NATGRID system, may not become fully operational by early next year, the official added.

NATGRID was conceived in 2008 by the then Home minister P. Chidambaram after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks as one single platform for collating all intelligence databases from different sources to provide quick access of information to about 10 intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. The Cabinet committee on Security had approved the setting up of NATGRID on 8 April 2010.

These data sources include records related to immigration entry and exit, banking and financial transactions. The NATGRID is supposed to have data related to all immigration entry and exit, banking and financial transactions, credit card purchases, telecom details, individual taxpayers, air flyers, and train travelers to generate intelligence inputs. It is also likely to have access to social media platforms.

It was conceived as an effective platform to predict and preempt terror attacks and other conspiracies entered between individuals to carry out internal sabotage.

This humongous 12-year-time gap between today and when it was first envisaged in 2008, can perhaps be understood by a recent report of the parliamentary standing committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Union Home Ministry that was presented to Rajya Sabha on 5 March this year has raised questions over the way funds were being utilized by NATGRID.

The committee stated that the allocation of Rs 50.82 crore granted in 2019-20 was cut down to Rs 43.77 crore in 2019-20 and out of that reduced allocation of Rs 43.77 crore too, only 54.67% of the fund has been utilised up to 31 January 2020.

The Committee had also questioned on why and how NATGRID had made a projection (demand) of Rs 283.29 crore for 2020-21 when even the allocated budget of Rs 43.77 crore in 2019-20 could not be utilised fully.

It had asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to closely monitor the fund utilisation under NATGRID and ensure that the funds are not surrendered during the fiscal year 2020-21. It also asked for reasons as to why there was a huge gap between the projected demand of Rs 283.29 crore whereas it was finally allocated Rs 52.17 crore only.

The committee is headed by Congress Rajya Sabha MP Anand Sharma and has nine other Rajya Sabha MP and 21 Lok Sabha MP.

As per government’s own admission in the Lok Sabha in November last year, against the 119 sanctioned government posts in NATGRID, only  53 officers have been appointed,  whereas against 123 contractual posts, 21 consultants have been deployed.

The 10 agencies which will be able to access the NATGRID data on real-time basis are: Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), Directorate General of Central Excise and Intelligence (DGCEI) and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). Initially, no state agencies will be given direct access to the NATGRID data.