“India’s cyber security strategy policy will be released in January 2020 and will enable the government to cyber-secure the nation. The government’s vision of a USD 5-trillion economy will be helped to a great extent by this effort,” said Rajesh Pant, National Cyber Security Coordinator on Cyber Policies, at an SKOCH event.
The most important requirement for internet safety is increased effective coordination between ministries that are overseeing various aspects of cyber security, proper critical infrastructure protection and public-private partnership, said Pant. He said the critical information infrastructure does not only lie with the government, so that partnership with private sector becomes essential.
On the requirement of huge budget to successfully implement cyber security at all levels, Ajeet Bajpai, Director General of the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre, said even a small country like Israel has allocated USD 20 million as the annual budget for cyber security.
“Considering the size and scale of our nation, we need approximately Rs 25,000 crore budget for the same. The biggest question is where this money will come from? Also, there is a need to emphasise on the need to make cyber security mandatory as a subject at the university level for high-decibel awareness,” Bajpai said.
Ashwini Mahajan, National Co-convener, Swadeshi Jagran Manch, said, “Data is Oil. While other countries have oil resources as a big opportunity to gain revenue, our country by taxing can use data mining as a revenue generating avenue”. He said many technology multinational firms are using data mining from India for their benefit but not paying any taxes for it. “By taxing the data being mined from India we can open up a new pool for generating tax revenue,” Mahajan said.
