NATGRID - India's Answer to Rising Terrorism

"A Safe Nation contributes to an Encouraged Civilization"

It was September, 2008 when terrorists from Lashkar-e-Taiba reached the port of Mumbai from Pakistan to lay siege to the city for the next 60 hours. With immediate mayhem, the City of Dreams shook by continuous blasts at the prominent point of Taj Hotels.

This horrific incident terrorism not only rattled the mass but also the government and all its security agencies.

What is NATGRID?

The then terror attacks were seen as the base of conceptualising NATGRID or commonly called as the National Intelligence Grid. The NATGRID framework suggestion was introduced which would be capable of suspecting terror attacks and preventing them using the real-time data. The foundation framework would initially be a prosperous and hefty intelligence gathering mechanism that would be related to immigration, banking, taxpaying, travelling etc.

In the other words NATGRID is an information database of terrorism, economic crimes and other similar types of attacks that would help the intelligence bureaus to create a radar for the threats and alerts that can be sensed or experienced beforehand. This database can also work as the medium for keeping records of the previous criminals and victims so that further investigations in any case doesn't become time consuming to let the culprit fly out of the hands of the authorities.

The project was conceptualized and was brought into the eyes of the government on April 08, 2010 and was approved by The Cabinet Committee on Security with a procurement of almost 3,400 crores. Since then, the work on development of the network was conducted allegedly until the pandemic has hit the world.

How would NATGRID work?

As per the report of the correspondents, the initial phase of NATGRID would be developed with 10 user agency i.e. Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW), Intelligence Bureau (IB), National Investigation Agency (NIA), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), Enforcement Directorate (ED), Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBITC), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) along with 21 service providers. It would also create a chain of networks that would be continuously updated with databases from over 14000 police stations all over India.

How NATGRID is going to help the security enforcement system in India?

The technology of National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) is basically to make a network of connections that would have secured access only to the authorities, where data from all over the system would be updated from time-to-time. The system would be proposed to have a well insured firewall that would provide that database with high security and protection from getting hacked by the black-hats for fraudulent uses. The databases would be stored in the system with certain algorithms that would be created by highly experienced Cyber Security professionals. The system would be well equipped with sensory facilities which would help in detecting alert threats and its intensity of risk. This in-turn would be of very much help to the intelligence professionals to recognize and spot the endangered area with the help of GPS Tracking.

The development of this project, National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) needs a professional team of highly qualified and experienced cyber security professionals and experts to assure the network with 100% security. It is strongly believed that this project would be treated as a "Leap of Mankind" in countering terrorism in the nation and the usage of the cyber security systems would deliver it a new phase of risk analysis and counter terrorism in India.