A woman surfs the Internet at a cyber cafe in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 18: The Odisha government has made it mandatory for all cyber cafe owners to register their business establishments under the Information Technology (Guidelines for Cyber Cafe) Rules, 2011. The government’s move is aimed at curbing the growing number of cyber crimes in the state.

Following the new directives, cyber cafe owners in the twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack will have to register their cafes with Cuttack-Bhubaneswar police.

In other places, such cafes have to get their registration done from their respective district collectors.

State information technology minister Raghunath Mohanty said today that the central government had earlier notified this rule. According to Section 3 of this rule, all state governments must empower authorised officers to register cyber cafes in their respective states.

“We have instructed all the district collectors to register cyber cafes in their area. The Cuttack-Bhubaneswar police will register the cafes operating under their jurisdiction. These officials must not only register the cafes but also monitor their functioning,” said Mohanty. He added that cafe owners who did not get their establishments registered would face action.

This would help curbing cyber crime in the state, said Mohanty.

At present, there are no regulations to keep tabs on these cyber cafes. Cyber cafes have, however, become rarer in urban areas because of the growing reach of Internet.

On February 2, 2010, the city police had arrested one person in connection with a threat mail sent from a Bhubaneswar cyber cafe to chief minister Naveen Patnaik. Following the incident, the police had instructed cyber cafe owners to follow guidelines such as maintaining a logbook of those using their cafes.

Many of these cyber cafes have allegedly been violating norms and allowing minors to use their cafes to surf restricted websites. Earlier this year, the Cuttack police had conducted raids and detained several teenagers for indulging in indecent activities at cyber cafes.

The police are considered ill equipped to crack down on cyber crimes because of their lack of expertise in the field. The police also do not maintain detailed reports on the cyber cafes in the city.

Following the rules, the cyber cafes have to register their establishments with the authorised government officials and that will help the authorities to keep tabs on their numbers. “Besides, if the owners violate the guidelines, they can easily be caught by the police during checking. It will help curb cyber crimes to a great extent,” said a senior city police officer.

Sources said the number of cyber cafes had gone down to around 100 in Bhubaneswar from more than 300 around four years ago. But there were over 200 cyber cafes operating in Cuttack city.

Many of these cyber cafe owners admitted that it was not always possible to keep tabs on all visitors, as this would mean hiring more workers. However, cyber experts said the registration of these cyber cafes would help the law enforcement agencies keep track of these “modern-day criminal hubs”.