In a recent interaction with the Secretaries, Modi impressed upon the senior bureaucrats that with several government functions online, hackers across the globe are sitting to breach into “our system”.

It is learnt that the PM himself said he does the same. "I do… it is important for cyber security.” The Prime Minister also suggested to the officers that they should designate one person to go around at the end of the day to ensure all systems have been logged out of and shut. 

Senior bureaucrats, who attended the meeting, told The Secretariat that PM Modi talked about his habit of religiously logging out of his system when he goes home. He also mentioned to officers that he had discussed the issue of cyber security with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in a meeting in March this year. 

Following the interaction between the PM and the secretaries, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, in a letter to all the participating senior officers, said it has been mentioned that “ministries to take steps to make their IT systems resilient and to sensitise the officers to ensure unscrupulous adherence to cyber security guidelines and protocols…this should be a continuing endeavour”.

It is to be noted that in the Interim Budget earlier this year, the government allocated enhanced funds for the Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), which functions under the administrative control of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), by nearly 70 per cent, while the cyber coordination budget was increased by a whopping 900 per cent when compared to the 2022 outlay. 

These efforts point to how the government is serious about giving special emphasis to cyber security in the country.   

In the letter, Cabinet Secretary Gauba asked the officers to identify at least one impactful project to be commissioned, one project to be grounded and one scheme/initiative to be launched during the first 100 days of Modi 3.0.

Gauba said, “Whole of government approach to be adopted by ministries and departments in formulating and implementing their policies and schemes. Concerted steps should be taken for India to become the third largest economy, in the shortest possible time frame.”

The Cabinet Secretary reminded the officers to take suitable initiatives to devise mechanisms to encourage officers to take full advantage of capacity-building courses and modules available on iGOT Karmayogi portal.

The letter also highlighted the need to commence planning for the post-budget webinars immediately. “All stakeholders to be involved in this exercise. Implementation of budget announcements to be ensured in a time-bound manner,” it added.

Gauba reminded the secretaries that an exercise is due to be undertaken “to assess manpower requirements of all the ministries and departments commensurate with their responsibilities, taking into consideration new policies, schemes and programmes being implemented by them”.