By: Srikant Jayanthan

NEW DELHI: India has delayed the full-fledged deployment of its indigenously built Centralised Monitoring System which can track all communication traffic - wireless and fixed line, satellite, internet, e-mails and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) calls - at least till December 2013, according to internal government documents reviewed by ET.

During the meeting between communication ministry officials for reviewing the progress on executing the National Telecom Policy, the details of which were reviewed by ET, it has been said that this Centralised Monitoring System (CMS) will be commissioned only by December because of lack of requisite infrastructure.

ET had first reported last month that the government had quietly began rolling out a project that gives it access to everything that happens over India's telecom network, online activities, phone calls, text messages and even social media conversations.

The CMS is slated to a the single window from where government arms such as the National Investigation Agency or the tax authorities will be able to monitor every byte of communication. However, freedom and internet activists are of the view that this gives the government unlimited powers, and in the absence of privacy laws in India, the system could end up being abused.

According to internal noting of the telecom ministry, the system was slated to be place in 10 states by March 2013, the deadline for which has now been extended to the year-end. This note states that tenders for equipment that would be housed in the remote monitoring centres (RMCs) were ready, but the delay in setting up of these centres had pushed back the project. It further adds that orders for ISF (Interception Store-and-Forward) equipment had so far been placed in only seven service areas.

Post-Mumbai attacks in 2008, the government has initiated various projects to counter rising security concerns. CMS and NATGRID are the two most talked about initiatives of government in this regard as both target private information of individuals. India's security rules for telecom equipment that mandate all network elements to be tested at a local lab for bugs and Trojan Horses from April 2013 have been put off till at least till October this year as the country is yet to have such a facility in place, according to an internal DoT note that was reviewed by ET.