GURGAON: A facility that will collate and analyze data from radar stations across India, providing a sweeping coverage of the country's vast but vulnerable coastline, opened its doors in the city on Sunday, six years after the 26/11 terror attack stirred the government into beefing up its maritime surveillance.

Christened Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC), it will operate as a joint facility for the Navy and Coast Guard and will function as a nodal centre of the National Command Control Communications and Intelligence Network, which integrates the radars of both maritime forces.

The IMAC, which is located within the Air Force station compound in Gurgaon, was inaugurated by defence minister Manohar Parrikar and minister of state for defence Rao Inderjit Singh, who is also the Gurgaon MP.

Parrikar said he believed the IMAC would ensure a "99.99%" shield against terror attacks like 26/11, but admitted the surveillance network still has some gaps that need to be plugged and cited the example of non-availability of proper radar coverage between Mangalore and Goa and Goa and Ratnagiri.

Parrikar sought the cooperation of states to make IMAC "100%" successful.

Stressing the need for India to be sel f-reliant in defence, one of the stated goals of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said the IMAC was "a reply of this great nation to the Mumbai attack".

He also called for a change in the mindset to analyze the data and ensure a "zero tolerance to error".

The Gurgaon facility, he added, would also provide a surveillance shield to exclusive economic zones along the coastline.

Chief of Naval Staff Admiral R K Dhowan and with other senior officials of the Navy, the Coast Guard and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), which is a collaborator in IMAC, were present on the occasion.

