Identifying critical infrastructure sectors and their dependencies: An Indian scenario

Across the globe, critical infrastructures constantly face the risk of cyber and/or other attacks from hostile and malicious entities as well as damage inflicted by natural disasters. This paper seeks to identify the critical infrastructure sectors of a country, namely India, and to explore the dependencies existing among them. The research draws on the extant literature as well as expert opinion and judgments to identify the critical infrastructure sectors. Following this, the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) technique is employed to discover the relationships and dependencies existing among the identified critical infrastructure sectors. Next, cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis is used to categorize the critical infrastructure sectors into four sub-groups based on their driving power and dependence on other sectors. Policy implications for government entities and businesses in India are also discussed.