India’s Cyber Fraud Crackdown: Scindia’s Tech-Driven Strategy Bolsters Digital Security
India is taking definitive action against the blazing wind of cyber fraud, led by Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who presented a powerful and technology driven strategy for citizens’ safety. Scindia highlighted the government’s multi-faceted efforts against phone fraud, and said that the Sanchar Saathi portal and the Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) had been prominent helping to shut off telecom-related scams. Scindia was able to document there had been a vital 97% drop in international spoofed calls and that over 47 crore fraudulent mobile connections had been blocked, demonstrating how India’s new vision of safe digital access and the inevitable combining of the innovative and the collaborative could protect mobile users wherever they were in the country.
The Sanchar Saathi initiative which was launched on May 16, 2023 became part of India’s battle against cybercrime. It has received 15.5 crore hits and empowered the citizens of India to bring attention to suspicious and illegitimate activity. Although the app was launched in January 2025, Sanchar Saathi has had 44 lakh downloads from the app store. The app includes several components such as the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) that enables a citizen to block or disable stolen phones and the “Know Your Mobile Connections” service that facilitates the detection of unauthorized mobile numbers. Scindia emphasized that 1.36 crore or 13.6 million duplicate mobile connections and 24 lakh corresponding WhatsApp accounts were shut down, thus illustrating the effectiveness and implications of the platform. The AI driven ASTR system took fraud detection to the next level by disconnecting nearly 82 lakh mobile connections using fake and false documents, including 3.57 lakh mobile numbers that were deactivated due to reports from the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal most notably in the states of Rajasthan, Bihar, and West Bengal.
The Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) has facilitated collaboration with 620 stakeholders, including 570 banks, 36 State Police, and telecom providers, to create a united front against cyber threats. The Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) software categorizes high-risk individuals wearing masks, allowing banks to block fraudulent transactions in real time, with 3.7 lakh individuals blocked so far. Scindia also observed the Centralised International Out Roaming Registry (CIOR) blocking 1.35 crore spoofed calls on its first day, meeting the demand to
reduce the 1.35 crore daily spoofed calls to 3 lakh daily. Also, 308 International Carriers involved in spoofed calls were blacklisted and complaints about international numbers being spoiled lessened from 2,776 in January 2025 to single digits by June.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has worked on further securing the telecom sector by transforming the mandated Know Your Customer (KYC) process to enable end-user verification for new business connections or SIM swaps. As per Scindia, the public sector telecom recovery had raised the subscriber base for BSNL from 8.55 crore to 9.1 crore subscribers, through a ₹3.22 lakh crore revival package. All this in addition to public campaigns, has demonstrated that the high price paid to cyber criminals has provided India with a unique opportunity to promote digital sovereignty, while the cost of cyber criminality could reach ₹11,000 crore in 2024.
India’s leadership in strengthening cyber defenses guarantees a safer digital ecosystem as it manages both domestic and international trade tensions.
