India has joined the ranks of countries like the United States where an individual’s immigration records, railways, airlines, passport and taxation details are among the several databases that will be made accessible to authorised intelligence and security agencies as part of a National Intelligence Grid.
The central security agencies like the Intelligence Bureau have been testing the NATGRID platform for some months now and sources said it has already become functional where the records of any suspect or accused can be immediately checked for national security purposes.
The rolling out of the NATGRID was a dream project of the previous UPA government, envisaged by then home minister P. Chidambaram after the 26/11 terror attacks.
However, it had faced many hurdles over the years with privacy concerns dominating the discourse. While there were apprehensions around individuals’ travel, banking and other records being made available to intelligence agencies, there were also turf wars between security agencies where some were not agreeable to share their database with the other.
Presently, there are a few agencies on board as compared to the mammoth setup envisaged earlier but the home ministry is hopeful that more will come on board as it rolls out.
The government departments and agencies who are on board to feed their data into the NATGRID system are Immigration, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, Railways, Passports, National Crime Records Bureau, Financial Intelligence Unit and Interoperable Criminal Justice System among others.
These feeder agencies will be providing records to authorised intelligence and security agencies who are the receivers like the Intelligence Bureau, R&AW, Enforcement Directorate, NIA, CBI and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.
The formal launch of NATGRID is expected soon with Home Minister Amit Shah saying that the counter terror project will be unveiled soon by the prime minister.
Government officials said NATGRID aims at enhanced intelligence sharing among agencies for counter-terror efforts.
It may be recalled that the Union Home Ministry had decided to set up a committee for the complete overhaul of the idea of NATGRID and suggest ways for its improved functioning after the NDA came to power.
During the UPA regime, it was suggested that the NATGRID would be in sync with a National Counter terrorism Centre, which ran into controversy due to federal concerns.
The NCTC had been rejected by state governments especially BJP ruled states and was put into cold storage.
However, with adequate privacy checks and balances and approval of states, the NATGRID is now set to see the light of the day.
