India may get Rs. 450 crore worth secure network

If the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) makes up its mind on it, there would be a secure network set up across the the country to facilitate safe communication, exclusively for the need of the government, reports NDTV Profit. The proposed secure network, using which the government will be able to carry out communication through the Internet, telecommunications will reportedly cost the government a whopping Rs. 450 crores, approximately. Of the proposed amount, 300 crores has been set aside for establishing of fixed and wireless communication, 100 crores for operational expenditure and another 50 crores for R&D. 

Setting up a secure network (Image credit: Getty Images)

At present, regular communication systems in the country - e-mail, VoIP, mobile communications, among others are secure per se, owing to the encrypted nature of the messages. Simply put, the messages sent across won’t be accessible to hackers, and other miscreants. However, since the servers hosting these services are located outside the country, the messages can be accessed by the governments of those countries. A communication system being used exclusively by the government cannot be measured by the same yardstick, hence reiterating the need of an exclusive, secure, pan-India network.

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Speaking about DoT’s ambitions, the article quotes the official report as stating, “To develop and deploy a pan-India secure network and network-based services such as e-mail, voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP), mobile communication through a survivable and available network architecture for secured communication for government use with a government funding of Rs 450 crore.”