By MEGHA BAHREE And GEETA ANAND

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A Bhartiya Janta Party activist holds up a candle Friday to pay homage to the recent Mumbai blast victims, at Bhadrakali Temple in Ahmedabad.

MUMBAI—Fresh details have emerged about Mumbai’s response to blasts that rocked the city two days ago that suggest India’s financial capital isn’t prepared to handle large-scale terror attacks almost three years after a terrorist rampage.

For the first 15 minutes after the triple bomb blasts on Wednesday, Prithviraj Chavan, chief minister of the state of Maharashtra, couldn’t reach any of his top lieutenants by phone.

“A communication blackout happened because [the networks] were overused,” he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “The mobile networks were jammed,” and as a result he couldn’t contact the chief of police just after the blasts.

He said the state is now putting in place a three-step backup plan to avoid any communication failures in the future.

The proposed plan, which will take up to a couple of months to kick in, will include an alternate security system for the mobile network, satellite phones and wireless radio. The government currently has satellite phones, but they weren’t with senior officers because they typically are meant to be used in remote areas.

Explosions Rock Mumbai

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Policemen stood at the blast site at Opera House in Mumbai on Thursday.

The blasts, the worst in the city since the 2008 terrorist attacks, occurred within minutes of each other at around 7 p.m. on Wednesday, killing 18 and injuring 133. Investigators continue to hunt for suspects and haven’t had a breakthrough so far.

The proposed changes come in addition to steps the central government already has taken to improve response since the attacks three years ago, including streamlining intelligence-gathering to improve coordination among agencies. The central government also has built anti-terrorism training centers and has offered funding to states to improve equipment, training and manpower.

A lack of an emergency communication system that allows the state’s chief executive and law-enforcement officials to communicate is just one of the basic problems the city still faces, Mr. Chavan and experts on terrorism in South Asia said.

Gaps also remain in Mumbai’s security because plans to modernize equipment have fallen short.

Mr. Chavan said, for instance, that the city hasn’t purchased all of the 5,000 closed-circuit televisions it had planned. He said the problem wasn’t funding but the slowness of India’s notorious bureaucracy.

“It takes time to take decisions because everyone is being cautious,” he said. By the time a decision is made, the technology is often outdated.

Mumbai Explosions

See the three locations where bombs exploded Wednesday evening

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Mumbai Under Attack

Mumbai has been a frequent target over the years for terrorist strikes.

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David Guttenfelder/Associated Press

Terror Attacks in India

See a chronology of major terror attacks in India.

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Police are relying on CCTV footage from the blast sites to try to generate leads. Mr. Chavan said the state would buy more closed-circuit cameras in the future as it plans to speed procurement. Purchasing, however, would still have to be made through a potentially lengthy tender process.

“We are now planning a fail-safe security system,” said Mr. Chavan.

The central government in New Delhi has made efforts to improve security since the 2008 assault on the city by Pakistan-based terrorists that left more than 160 dead, but many of the efforts haven’t produced results, said C. Christine Fair, assistant professor in Georgetown University’s security-studies program.

Mumbai’s problems are reflected across India, experts said, with government initiatives to update and improve police forces falling short of their goals.

In 2000, the central government launched a program to modernize state police forces, according to PRS Research, an independent research organization that works with members of the Indian Parliament across party lines. The idea was to share costs between the state and central governments, but in most cases both didn’t realize their commitments.

From 2000 to 2007, both state and central government released fewer funds than they had promised, says PRS. Police forces had a shortage of vehicles and used outdated weapons, while communication networks often weren’t in place and certain other equipment was in short supply.

“What’s not available is the political will at the state level,” said Ms. Fair.

She said, for example, that Jharkhand, one of the central Indian states dealing with a Maoist rebellion, has used only 61% of the funds the government of India allocated for it to modernize its police force. Bihar, another troubled state with high levels of crime, has used only 51% of the funds, she added.