“Budget 2026 is an opportunity to decisively strengthen India’s critical national infrastructure (CNI) by recognising cyber-physical security and resilience as a core national capex priority, not merely an IT expense. As power grids, oil & gas networks, utilities and transportation systems become increasingly digitised, vulnerabilities in Operational Technology/ Industrial Control Systems (OT/ICS) environments can translate into safety incidents and large-scale service disruptions. While India has taken important regulatory steps through National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) and Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the next leap must be execution at scale—backed by sustained funding for sectoral institutions, training, audits, tooling and rapid-response capabilities.
We expect a strong push to modernise mission-critical communications—upgrading legacy networks to resilient Internet Protocol and Multiprotocol Label Switch (IP/MPLS), optical and secure wireless systems across substations, pipelines and energy corridors—supported through capex incentives, faster depreciation and viability-gap-style mechanisms. Equally important is a shift from pure asset creation to lifecycle assurance, with budgetary incentives for reliability, cybersecurity, digital Operations & Maintenance (O&M) and predictive maintenance to ensure long-term safety and uptime.
Secure-by-design procurement norms for critical national infrastructure (CNI) projects, emphasising integration accountability, rigorous testing, documentation and lifecycle support, will be critical as integration quality directly impacts national safety and resilience. Budget support for indigenous manufacturing and trusted supply chains—along with rationalised duties where domestic capabilities are still evolving—will keep modernisation affordable and timely.
Finally, building a dedicated Operational Technology (OT) cybersecurity talent pipeline and improving access to long-tenure, infrastructure-aligned capital will enable Indian companies to scale responsibly while strengthening the resilience of India’s mission-critical infrastructure.”
Mr. Shriprakash Pandey, Chairman & Managing Director, Commtel Networks Limited
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