New Delhi: The government today gave its
approval to set up the National Counter-Terrorism Centre which
will act as the nodal agency for all anti-terror activities in
the country.
The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), headed by Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, after an hour-long meeting gave its
nod to set up the NCTC which will streamline all terror-
related intelligence, analyse and provide them for action to
concerned agencies, official sources said.
A pet project of Home Minister P Chidambaram, the NCTC
will be the nodal agency for all counter-terrorism activities
and coordinate with intelligence agencies such as Intelligence
Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), Joint
Intelligence Committee (JIC) and state intelligence agencies.
The NCTC will connect Multi Agency Centre (MAC), which
would be subsumed into NCTC, and all agencies reporting to it
in Delhi and state capitals.
Between the Centre, where almost two dozen agencies
coordinate with MAC, and states almost 500 stakeholders are
involved in counter-terror activities.
The NCTC will not have any foot-soldier to collect
information, but will depend on other agencies.
It will come up through an executive order which will be
issued soon. The government will not bring a legislation for
setting up of this anti-terror body, unlike the NIA that was
created through an Act.
The head of the body, an additional Director General
level police officer, will report to the Union Home Secretary.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, January 12, 2012, 14:51