5 years after 26/11: Intelligence agencies suffer critical staff shortage

Five years after Mumbai’s most brazen terror attack, amid reports that coastal security for the financial capital remains feeble despite the state home minister’s insistence that it is otherwise, reports now say the Indian intelligence and espionage establishment is working with staff shortage of up to 40 percent. Across the intelligence services, there are critical staff deficits, says this report in The Hindu .   [caption id=“attachment_1251197” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Reuters[/caption] While the Intelligence Bureau has a sanctioned strength of 26,867 but only 18,795 personnel, the RAW which is estimated to have a 5,000-strong force has a 40 pc staff shortage, including 130 management-level staff, according to the report. According to the report, The most critical deficiencies, however, are in critical technology positions — the core of modern espionage. The RAW, the sources said, is now approximately a third short of its sanctioned strength of cryptanalysts, who are charged with breaking enemy codes and ciphers. Apparently, the RAW’s internal cadre, the Research and Analysis Service, has not recruited between 2004 and 2009. Later hiring has been a “trickle”. When bulk recruitment was planned last year, the debate between sleecting from UPSC candidates and campus recruitment stalled efforts. The role of RAW and the IB in preventing terror attacks has been detailed by, among others, the latest book on the 26/11 attack THE SIEGE — The Attack on the Taj by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark. The book reveals that the R&AW received as many as 26 warnings from the CIA, from August 2006, with specific mentions of the targets, inlcluding Leopold Café, the Oberoi Trident and the Taj.