Top tech body to come up in Hyderabad

The National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) will be located in or around Hyderabad.

The Andhra Pradesh government decided on the location at a meeting presided over by Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy on Saturday.

NTRO is the premier apex scientific organisation, under the National Security Adviser in the Prime Minister's Office, engaged in the development and deployment of systems for National Security. NTRO's activities include aviation and remote sensing, data gathering & processing, cyber security, crypto systems, strategic hardware & software development and strategic monitoring.

The NTRO will also include the National Institute of Cryptology Research and Development (NICRD), which will be the premier institute and first of its kind in Asia. The NICRD will create a pool of experts in information security for industry and government. It will also design and develop encryption products of national security applications. It will have state-of-the-art laboratories like simulation labs and digital fortress labs for financial security. There will be strong linkages with academic institutions and industries.

The NICRD will have headquarters in Hyderabad with a residential campus and centres in other parts of the country. The NTRO will also include the National Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NIIPC) which will be India's first hi-tech critical infrastructure protection centre. It will provide cutting edge R&D in the area of critical information protection by harnessing competencies and capabilities in industry and educational institutions.

It will provide a major catalytic effect on IT establishments in AP. It will also include aero-space and remote sensing centres which will deploy sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles for internal security and will have remote sensing satellite data archival back-up facility with value-added remote sensing image products generation facility.

The NTRO will also have a Disaster Recovery Centre as part of a national information repository exchange generating and disseminating thousands of petabytes on real time for national security related activities.

In addition to serving overall national security requirements, presence of these centres will have a catalytic effect in creating security related professionals, products and services as a spin-off to various other sectors of economy.