NatGrid has an info-sharing problem
Trouble continues to brew for the government from within as the National Intelligence Grid (NatGrid), being set up after 26/11, faces resistance from top Central ministries and agencies.
The ministry of defence and R&AW have refused to share information with NatGrid, which will act as the backbone of the National Counter Terrorism Centre, providing it an essential database to track down terror operatives.
The finance ministry has also opposed the home ministry’s proposal to allow banks to directly provide any information on terror-related matters to NatGrid. As a compromise, the MHA has agreed to route all such information through the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), placed within the finance ministry.
The finance ministry put its foot down since it wanted to scrutinise the queries of NatGrid involving banking transactions to ensure only information related to ‘counter-terror’ efforts is shared with the Central intelligence platform, sources said.
Following the finance ministry’s objections, it has been decided that all queries involving bank data flowing into NatGrid will be sent to the FIU, which will in turn gather the information from the banks and send it back to NatGrid on a real-time basis.
“Most ministries and agencies are not keen to part with sensitive information,” top government sources said. Both the NCTC and NatGrid have witnessed turf wars and resistance from agencies to share information. More resistance came when the MoD and R&AW opted out of NatGrid despite assurances that they would be required to share only such intelligence that pertains to terrorism.
The government has been unable to build a consensuson the organizational structure of NatGrid till now. NatGrid includes one-third officers from the government and two-thirds from the private sector.
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