Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, 25 October 2026, inaugurated the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Data Centre and the Cybersecurity Training Institute in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, using the occasion to stress the importance of inclusive development and the government's commitment to ensuring that the benefits of growth reach every citizen.

Key Remarks at the Inauguration

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Prime Minister Modi said, 'With the blessings of Mahaprabhu (Lord Jagannath), Bhubaneswar is giving a new institution to a new India today.' He described the occasion as significant, noting that the two facilities would benefit both Odisha and the country at large.

Modi underscored a longstanding challenge in India's development story — that while large cities, hospitals, and airports grew rapidly after Independence, a substantial portion of the population remained without basic amenities. He framed his government's governance model as 'pro-people, proactive and good governance,' aimed at leaving no citizen behind.

Financial Inclusion: A Decade of Change

The Prime Minister cited banking access as a defining metric of inclusive growth. 'Banks were nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s in the name of the poor. Yet, until 2014, more than half of the country's population remained outside the banking system. Even bank loans were a distant dream for the middle class, while the poor, small farmers, landless people, sisters and daughters could not even think of accessing such facilities. Today, digital banking in India has connected everyone to 24-hour banking services,' he said.

Modi noted that poor and middle-class families once needed a guarantor merely to open a bank account — a structural barrier he attributed to policy failures of the previous administration.

Sharp Criticism of Previous Government

The Prime Minister took a pointed jibe at what he characterised as 'phone banking' under the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. He alleged that the system disproportionately benefited the wealthy and those with political connections, while ordinary citizens were excluded from basic financial services. 'Under the Congress' phone banking system, thousands of crores of rupees were readily available to the rich. It was this mismanagement that brought India's banking system under the grip of non-performing assets (NPAs), pushing it to the brink of ruin,' he alleged.

Why the New RBI Facilities Matter

Turning to the significance of the new infrastructure, Modi said the next decade must be about making banking 'more efficient and trustworthy,' building on the previous decade's work of expanding access. He described the new RBI Data Centre in Odisha as a critical component of protecting the country's digital financial infrastructure.

He also stressed that as cyber threats continue to evolve, the new Cybersecurity Training Institute would help build the skilled human resources, modern tools, and updated training systems necessary to tackle emerging challenges. The institute is positioned as a national resource for cybersecurity capacity-building in the banking sector.

Broader Context

The inauguration comes as India's digital banking infrastructure has expanded significantly over the past decade, underpinned by schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY). The establishment of a dedicated RBI data centre and cybersecurity institute in Bhubaneswar signals a continued push to decentralise critical financial infrastructure away from traditional metros. For Odisha, the development brings the profile of a state that has historically been on the periphery of India's financial architecture closer to its centre. All eyes will now be on how quickly the cybersecurity institute operationalises its training programmes and whether the data centre delivers measurable improvements in banking system resilience.