Centre to focus on cyber preparedness of cities

The cyber attacks during ‘Operation Sindoor’ have brought the government’s focus on cyber preparedness of Indian cities.

The ministry of housing and urban affairs will hold a two-day brainstorming session with states next week in this regard, people aware of the matter told ET.

The aim of the meeting will be to gauge whether cities are equipped to handle cyber attacks, how technological interventions and projects planned in 100 smart cities can help states in handling cyber terrorism, and whether the special purpose vehicles (SPVs) in cities could be repurposed to handle current urban governance and challenges, the people cited earlier said.

Three key brainstorming sessions have been planned by the government on July 17 and 18. For the first time since the beginning of the third term of the BJP-led NDA government, a meeting of urban development ministers will be held by Union minister Manohar Lal Khattar on July 17 to gauge the progress of flagship missions, including Swachh Bharat Mission, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and AMRUT. The conference will focus on financing of urban governance projects, challenges facing the state governments in urban development, making cities garbage-free, transport services and water security for cities.

According to the sources, the main focus will be “Making Cities Cyber Secure” on the second day of the programme.

“This is an emergency of sorts facing our cities. We need to equip them to ward off cyber attacks. This part will be anchored by ministry of electronics and information and technology and the home ministry,” a senior official, who did not wish to be named, told ET.

The Smart Cities Mission, which has been wrapped up formally by the government, had seen technological interventions in 100 cities. All smart cities had established hi-tech command and control centres and several urban governance functions are being coordinated through these centres.

“These are nerve centres of a city. They are susceptible to cyber attacks but can also be used as centres to handle cyber terrorism. This is what the Centre’s focus is – to equip them to handle such attacks,” the official said.

The Intelligence Bureau will be conducting a training programme on “Threat Landscape for cities” to brief the smart cities on what threats they could face. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) will help cities understand what cyber measures they could take to protect their installations.

The Indian Crime Coordination Centre will brief the cities on measures to undertake to arrest cyber attacks. Similarly, the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre will be involved in the training programme of smart cities, the official cited earlier said.

The government will also help smart cities in repurposing special purpose vehicles (SPVs) established in all cities to spearhead the Smart Cities Mission. “The mission period may have ended but the SPVs have gathered expertise in handling big infrastructure projects. This can be channelised into handling projects even now. SPVs need to be repurposed and this is what the cities will do,” said the official.