State to draw up cyber security plan, allocates ₹837 crore

The state cabinet has approved a ₹837 crore cyber security plan in India to tackle cybercrimes. The plan includes a call centre, command and control centre, and an application and portal for citizens to register complaints. Advanced technology will be used to collect evidence and ensure conviction.

The state cabinet on Wednesday cleared a proposal to formulate a cyber security plan to tackle the increasing cybercrimes and sanctioned an outlay of ₹837 crore for this initiative.

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Under the plan, the government will set up a call centre that will be operational round the clock, establish a command and control centre, and develop an application and a portal. Citizens can register complaints at any of these facilities, a government press release said.

An official, who refused to be named, said advanced technology would be used to collect evidence and ensure conviction and all information related to cybercrimes would be stored at a government-operated data centre.

The project was approved in principle in 2016, but the bidders had quoted very high prices and it had to be dropped. The present project would be operated by the bidder for 5.5 years, the official added.

The release said 3,253 policemen from 48 cyber police stations are being trained for this job.

In the monsoon session of the legislature in July, deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had said that the state would unveil its advanced cyber security platform in the next six months. All social media handles, financial institutions, banks and non-banking companies would be brought together on this platform to reduce the response time, he had said. The deputy CM had added that money lost in cyber frauds moved through over 10 accounts.