The fear of spying within the government is not new and designated agencies are at work daily to check for anything unwarranted. In the backdrop of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee writing to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a secret probe into suspected bugging of his office and that of his advisor, Omita Paul, a senior official pointed out that all key ministries are checked for Rs listening devices’ on a regular basis.
Some sensitive offices are “swept for suspicious devices twice daily to ensure that all state secrets are safe,” said another. The security drill is carried out morning and evening in such offices and rooms across both sides of the Raisina Hill. In South Block, the drill covers the PM’s office, ministry of external affairs and ministry of defence. On the other side of the road, in North Block, the exercise is carried out in both the ministry of finance and ministry of home affairs, it is learnt.
Apart from the ministers’ offices, those of the secretaries and some other senior officials are also kept ‘sanitised’. Meeting rooms and conference areas are also often checked for bugs in sensitive establishments.
As for the other ministries and government departments, these checks are mostly need-based, as they may not necessarily have too many state secrets.
As for the ministry of finance, under the spotlight now, it houses important documents like the Budget papers and critical information related to other ministries and sectors as well.
According to an official familiar with the “rigorous security drill”, the computers and their hard-drives are tested for “bugs in the system” during the weekends in many of these sensitive offices.
While the Intelligence Bureau is in charge of the drill, security officers are designated for each ministry, it is learnt. A senior ministry official, often a joint secretary, is the nodal person administering the regular exercise.