The Ministry of Home Affairs has been pushing states to build a dedicated cybercrime coordination architecture since well before the recent spate of digital arrest busts and sextortion cases made headlines. The directive is clear: every state and Union Territory must establish a State Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, known as an S4C, that functions as a direct state-level counterpart to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre at the national level.
So far, only 10 states have done it.
Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have established S4Cs. The remaining states and UTs, including Odisha, have not. The MHA has now communicated its urgency directly, stressing the need for speedy establishment and operationalisation of S4Cs across all states and UTs.
Odisha’s Home Department responded this week. Joint Secretary Minakshi Behera wrote to the Director General of Police, asking the state police to prioritise the establishment of an S4C and nominate an officer not below the rank of DIG to coordinate with the MHA on the matter.
What An S4C Does
The S4C is not a standard police unit. It is designed as a state-level nodal agency for the coordinated prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of cybercrimes, with a mandate broader and more intensive than any existing district or state cyber police station.
The MHA has specified the structure. Each S4C must comprise two to three wings covering cyber investigation, cyber operations and cybersecurity. A senior official heads the overall centre. The head of the S4C reports directly to the Head of Police Force, placing it at the apex of the state’s law enforcement hierarchy for cybercrime matters.
The operational mandate goes beyond investigation. S4Cs will enable state-level data analytics, hotspot mapping and trend analysis, allowing state police to deploy targeted preventive and enforcement strategies rather than reacting to individual complaints. The MHA noted that cybercrime patterns vary across states based on demographics, digital adoption, local languages and socio-economic factors. A state-level body with analytical capability is better placed to address those variations than a national centre operating at scale.
The S4C will also facilitate seamless exchange of cybercrime intelligence and threat feeds with I4C — creating a direct data pipeline between the state and national coordination layers.
Why Odisha Needs This Now
The timing of Odisha’s move is not incidental. In 2025, the state recorded 49,426 cybercrime complaints on the NCRP involving approximately Rs 432 crore in losses. Of that, only Rs 5.31 crore was returned to victims. The 1.2% recovery rate reflects the absence of coordinated, real-time inter-agency response infrastructure.
Earlier this week, Odisha Police’s CID Crime Branch recovered Rs 1.10 crore for a retired professor duped of Rs 2.45 crore in a digital arrest scam — a notable success achieved through fast complaint processing via the 1930 helpline. But individual recoveries, however significant, are not a substitute for systematic coordination. An S4C changes the architecture. It creates a permanent, senior-led body with analytical tools, direct national connectivity and authority to coordinate across police, banks, telecoms and digital platforms within the state.
A National Gap That Still Needs Closing
With only 10 of India’s 28 states and 8 Union Territories having established S4Cs, the national cybercrime coordination network remains incomplete. Each state without an S4C is a gap in the intelligence pipeline between the ground and I4C. Cybercriminals operating across state borders — as almost all major fraud syndicates do — exploit exactly those gaps.
The MHA’s push to accelerate S4C establishment across remaining states is part of the same governance response that PM Modi raised at the 52nd PRAGATI meeting this week, where he called for clear accountability, faster response and better coordination across law enforcement agencies, banks and digital platforms.
