NATGRID to be revamped

The Narendra Modi government has decided to revamp the NATGRID, one of the biggest internal security projects of the previous UPA government, and will soon set up a committee for its complete overhaul.
The committee will suggest how to improve the functioning of the NATGRID, a robust intelligence gathering mechanism set up to track any terror suspect and incident, and how to utilise its data base by different government agencies, a senior Home Ministry official said.
According to the Home Ministry's proposal, the National Intelligence Grid, set up after the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008 and still in nascent stage, will connect data providing organisations and users in different phases besides developing a legal structure through which information can be accessed by the law enforcement agencies.

In the first phase, 10 user agencies and 21 service providers will be connected, while in later phases about 950 additional organisations will be connected and another over 1,000 organisations in the subsequent years.
These data sources include records related to immigration entry and exit, banking and financial transactions and telecommunication.
The agencies include the Intelligence Bureau, local police and revenue and customs departments.

Weeks after it assumed charge, the NDA government had decided not to renew the contract of Raghu Raman, the first CEO of NATGRID.
Raman, who was appointed by the then Home Minister P Chidambaram, was drawing a salary of Rs 10 lakh per month besides other entitlements of top officers.

While the clearance for the Rs 3,400 crore project from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) came in 2011, its execution slowed down after the exit of Chidambaram from the Home Ministry in July 2012.
There are around 70 personnel, drawn from both the government and private sectors, in NATGRID.