The National Command Control Communication and Intelligence System (NC3I)

History of NC3I

• It was established to link the operational Centres and lower echelons of the Navy and the Coast Guard spread across the country’s coastline, including the island territories.
• NC3I network functions as the communication backbone under the National Maritime Domain Awareness (NMDA) project
• Post  26/11 Mumbai attack. The Navy took immediate action towards creating a National Command Control & Communications Intelligence network (NC3I)
• NC3I was put under the Cabinet Secretary with financial sanction of Rs 452 crores, and a National Committee for Strengthening Maritime and Coastal Security (NCSMCS) was formed under the Cabinet Secretary

The NC3I network

• The NC3I network links 51 Naval and Coast Guard stations, located along the coast and on island territories. 
• The NC3I network has been integrated by Bangalore-based BEL
• The network provides these stations coastal surveillance information obtained from various sensors such as the coastal radar chain of the Indian Coast Guard and automatic tracking systems as well as electro-optical cameras. 
• The network rides on dedicated terrestrial data circuits, as well as satellite communication, which helps the stations in remote locations to be networked. 
• The Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC), at Gurgaon, is the centre where data from various sensors and databases is aggregated, correlated and then disseminated to various stations for enhanced awareness.

The National Maritime Domain Awareness (NMDA) Project

NDMA project of India an integrated intelligence grid to detect and tackle threats emanating from the sea in real-time has been established to generate a common operational picture of activities at sea through an institutionalized mechanism for collecting, fusing and analyzing information from technical and other sources like coastal surveillance network radars, space-based automatic identification systems, vessel traffic management systems, fishing vessel registration and fishermen biometric identity databases