Government ropes in National Informatics Centre to create networked system for NATGRID project

NEW DELHI: The government has roped in the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to create a state-of-the-art networked system for the ambitious National Intelligence Grid ( NATGRID) project.

The new system being designed by NIC would analyse data, behavior patterns and generate relevant information for investigative agencies. At the centre of the system, officials say, is the NAT SAR – an enterprise that will digest information from databases like banking information, railways, telephone records and airlines and would be able to pass smart, actionable inputs to investigative agencies.

Officials said with NATGRID in cold storage for months, fresh discussions have been initiated with the NIC to come on board as a project manager to execute the NAT SAR.

It is learnt that meetings have taken place between NIC and home ministry officials and an MoU is likely to be signed shortly to take on the process.

“There have been many rounds of discussions in the past month and given the sensitivity and complexity of the project, the NIC has been asked to help. The plan is likely to involve NIC officials being deputed initially to NATGRID to start creating the system,” a senior official told ET.

Describing NAT SAR as a complex system that will be at the heart of the national policing and intelligence system, the official said that it would include a master data repository and would have the ability to work out behavioural patterns, alerts and linkages across government and open source data.

Once the system is in operation, the government plans to rope in states to share information on NATGRID. “Several rounds of consultation were held to allay fears among agencies that there will be breach of security,” said an official.