Friday, November 5, 2010

Natgrid Project Of India May Fail

National intelligence grid (Natgrid) project is both essential as well as controversial. It is essential as it safeguards the security of India. It is controversial because it does not provide adequate safeguards to prevent its abuse-Praveen Dalal


Natgrid project of India has been in limelight. It is a project launched by the home ministry of India. There is no doubt that home minister P. Chidambaram is blindly impressed by the US and UK security projects. He fails to understand that India has a different set up and Indian constitution must also be complied with to implement these projects.

In the past, the cabinet committee on security (CCS) of India asked P .Chidambaram to introduce further “Safeguards” before the Natgrid project can be launched in India. However, there are no such safeguards that have been kept at place by home ministry till November 2010.

According to Praveen Dalal, NATGRID Project cannot succeed in India till we meet certain challenges posed by it and ignored by the Home Ministry. Till now there is no public information about the Project, there is no website of the Project, status of its implementation is missing, etc, informs Dalal With this approach, NATGRID Project is heading towards the fate of failure as been received by the Aadhar Project and UIDAI, suggests Dalal.

It would be a good option if the cabinet committee on security (CCS) clarifies the stand on this project. Further, the CCS must also ensure that Chidambaram do not have a free run that is clearly violative of the provisions of Indian constitution.