National intelligence gridlock: Home fires SOS to PM

Home Secretary G K Pillai is understood to have written to Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar last week asking him to seek the Prime Ministers intervention

The Home Ministry has informed the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) that any further delay in establishing the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) could have serious repercussions for the countrys internal security. Raghu Raman,the NATGRID CEO,will demit office on May 31 after 18 unfruitful months without the CCS taking any decision on either the grid or the umbrella National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC).

Home Secretary G K Pillai is understood to have written to Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar last week asking him to seek the Prime Ministers intervention.

Pillai told The Indian Express: We are very concerned at decisions not been taken. We have not been told,for instance,if the discussion paper we prepared for the NCTC has been rejected or if it needs modification.

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The international security scenario is becoming very complex and we are gaining nothing by delaying these projects.

The decision to link 21 available databases for 11 authorised government agencies was given in-principle approval by the CCS in 2009 after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. This was part of the national security architecture worked out by Home Minister P Chidambaram. It was only then that Raghu Raman was hired from Mahindra Security Group to set up the NATGRID by May 2011.

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