Bhubaneswar, October 25: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated the Reserve Bank of India’s new RBI data centre and Cybersecurity Training Institute in Bhubaneswar, saying India must protect its banking system from “cyber looters and cyber terrorists” as its economy grows.
What the facilities do
According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the facility has four data centres that will host the RBI’s mission-critical payment and settlement systems and other flagship initiatives. It holds Uptime Institute Tier IV certification and is among the largest Tier IV-certified facilities in banking, financial services and insurance worldwide.
The Cybersecurity Training Institute will provide training, research and capacity building for the financial sector, with a focus on quantum computing, artificial intelligence and other frontier technologies.
Modi said the past decade had been about taking banking to people who were outside it, and the coming decade would be about making banking more efficient and reliable. Wars, he said, are no longer fought with weapons alone and a nation can be weakened by attacks on its economy. Outdated training tools needed to be replaced with modern infrastructure and skilled people, which is where the new institute comes in, he added.
Financial inclusion figures
The Prime Minister said more than half the population had been outside the banking system until 2014. He cited nearly 60 crore Jan Dhan accounts, 13 crore first-time entrepreneurs under the Mudra Yojana, and bank support worth thousands of crores to self-help groups representing 10 crore rural women. Lakhs of street vendors and artisans have received formal credit through PM SVANidhi and PM Vishwakarma, he said.
On social security, Modi said the Atal Pension Yojana covers 9 crore people, including 38 lakh in Odisha. PM Suraksha Bima Yojana offers ₹2 lakh accident cover for an annual premium of ₹20, and PM Jeevan Jyoti Yojana offers life cover for under ₹450 a year. More than ₹25,000 crore in claims have been paid to families, he said.
He also referred to nearly 1.75 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs set up in villages and the opening of AIIMS institutions and medical colleges beyond the big cities.
Modi said Odisha was adding semiconductors, electronics, data centres and advanced computing to its mineral-based industries. “You will see, Odisha, from mines to microchips, is going to write a new future,” he said.
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