Ashok Patnaik to be new CEO of NATGRID

Patnaik, a 1983-batch Gujarat cadre officer, currently serving as Additional Director in Intelligence Bureau

Ashok Patnaik, a senior IPS officer, was today appointed as the CEO of NATGRID, a robust intelligence gathering mechanism being set up to track terror suspects and incidents.

Patnaik, a 1983-batch Gujarat cadre officer, currently serving as Additional Director in the Intelligence Bureau, will be responsible for taking forward the government's efforts to set up the highly sophisticated security set up, official sources said.

Patnaik is the son-in-law of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

As per the Home Ministry proposal, the NATGRID, which is still in nascent stage, in different phases, will connect data providing organisations and users besides developing a legal structure through which information can be accessed by the law enforcement agencies.

In the first phase, 10 user agencies and 21 service providers will be connected, while in later phases about 950 additional organisations will be connected and another over 1,000 organisations in the subsequent years.

These data sources include records related to immigration entry and exit, banking and financial transactions and telecommunications. The agencies include the Intelligence Bureau, local police and revenue and customs departments.

While the clearance for Rs 3,400 crore project from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) came in 2011, execution of the project slowed down after the exit of Home Minister P Chidambaram in July 2012. There are around 70 personnel, drawn from both the government and private sectors, in NATGRID.

The appointment in the post of CEO, which has been lying vacant for several months, came a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the working of the NATGRID.