Alarmed over the corporate espionage threatening national economic security, the Centre on Wednesday directed the Intelligence Bureau to keep surveillance on babus and junior staffers of sensitive Ministries round-the-clock.
Earlier, the covert agency used to monitor the activities of certain Ministries on a random basis. The Government also issued a set of guidelines seeking to do away with the practice of Group D employees carrying sensitive files of senior bureaucrats from one desk to the other. Now the officials have been asked to handle such files themselves so that leakage can be plugged as they will themselves be accountable for any pilferage of sensitive information.
The guidelines also stipulate installation of computerised locks for classified documents to prevent any leakage in the future. According to the guidelines, all the sensitive Ministries are supposed to install CCTV cameras in the corridors and strictly regulate entry of visitors and keep a vigil on any suspicious movement.
“The PMO has taken a serious note of the espionage case involving several key Ministries. The Government has issued the fresh guidelines to all the secretaries to curb theft sensitive documents,” a senior IB official said.
The move comes after Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth chaired an emergency meeting on Tuesday with secretaries of all Ministries to devise measures to ensure secrecy of Government’s classified documents.
Sources said that the Government has resolved to put a total clampdown on leakage of sensitive information from various departments. Following the meeting, the Government also ordered security audit of official computers and security vetting of staff of major Ministries and departments.
The present access control mechanism in the Ministries and departments will undergo a major overhaul and electronic surveillance will be upgraded to ensure a “leak-proof” system, the sources said. Each Ministry and department will appoint a Joint Secretary-level officer as departmental security officer to ensure foolproof security of official documents and computers.
The meeting decided that manual of departmental security instructions prepared by the Home Ministry will be issued to each of the Ministry and department, sources said.
Till now, the IB used to keep the Ministries under surveillance on a random basis or after any specific input of any irregularity by certain babus in major decision making process was received. The agency also issues advisories to the Ministries in case of major deviations by any officials. “Regular surveillance on the activities of all the Ministries is not possible due to staff crunch and therefore input-based or random monitoring exercises are held. But now we will rationalise our human resources to keep a tab on the activities of the babus in various departments,” a senior IB official said.
However, the case of Defence Ministry was different where the agency kept a watch on the activities of the babus as well as those from the services posted in the South Block. The IB’s desk for the Defence Ministry keeps a watch on the activities of babus and all mega deals for acquisition are followed in order to check any pilferage of information that could compromise national security.
The Defence Ministry on its part already maintains a strong protocol for its officials and those from the Services for interaction with foreign missions here and deviations, if any, are also reported by the IB. The Services’ officials are supposed to seek prior permission from the Ministry before any meetings with officials of foreign embassies. The activities of the foreign vendors are also kept under watch to nip any possible trap they might be seeking to lay on senior babus or those from the armed forces.
The movement of files, including classified ones, is normally handled by the Group D staff as per the instructions they receive from the senior officials.
last week the Delhi Police’s Crime Branch arrested 12 people including five executives of the top corporate houses in connection with the alleged data theft from the Petroleum Ministry. Two employees of the Ministry along with three middlemen were also arrested.
The ambit of the racket dealing in secret information has widened as the police on Monday busted a parallel module and arrested lokersh Sharma, an employee of a consultancy firm for allegedly procuring classified documents from Coal, Power and Defence Ministries. Seven employees of these Ministries were detained and are still being questioned.
Police has been on record saying the accused Ministry staffers used to provide stolen documents to some corporate houses in exchange of money. The Government has also directed members of the board of directors, CMDs and other senior officials of PSUs not to loiter unnecessarily in the corridors of their respective Ministries.