Penny wise, pound foolish

Bhargava, a former FICCI Deputy Secretary General, told The Indian Express: 8216;8216;In the business of secure technology, we try and follow the crooks and beat them at their business. In this case, Telgi obviously had got there before us. I am afraid this is one time when we were beaten by the crooks.8217;8217;

Dr Bhargava says that when talks with the MoF began, TSSI officials flew down from England for presentations. A formal working group comprising officials from the MoF, the Department of Posts, the Intelligence Bureau, the Research and Analysis Wing and the Nashik security press was set up. But the working group met just once and clearly it was the officials from Nashik who were reluctant to use the British magnetic technology.

Given the magnitute of the Telgi scam and the ease with which judicial and non-judicial paper were forged in other parts of the country, Dr Bhargava feels a high price has been paid by the country given the comparative low cost of the secure technology. 8216;8216;I made three visits to the Nashik press to see things for myself and to explain to the managers there how secure seals could make every paper printed counterfeit-proof,8217;8217; he explained. 8216;8216;But I could see a resistance from among the staffers. Telgi had obviously already infiltrated into the high-security zone.8217;8217;

The expert explained that if the security seal was used on stamp paper at the time it is printed, it can never be duplicated by crooks. And while the MoF deal fell through, the Department of Atomic Energy began using other secure services offered by the British firm.

The security seal uses the structured magnetic technology which is similar to the standard magnetic strip, found on the back of every credit card. The fact is that the magnetic pattern created on secure paper is unaffected by any magnetic or electric field and can never be erased, modified or copied.

At that time, Dr Bhargava says, for an expense of a few crore rupees the moF had the opportunity of making every sheet of paper rolling out of the Nashik press, tamper-proof. Now, it8217;s time for the Government to go into a huddle and make up for the lost time and the revenue loss of thousands of crores of rupees.