Uri effect: Parliamentary Panel on Home Affairs to review border security

 Against the backdrop of Uri terror attack and heightened tensions with Pakistan, the Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs on Wednesday decided to take up urgently the review of border security as well as internal security capabilities.

The newly-reconstituted committee, headed by former Home Minister P Chidambaram, which met here today for the first time, decided to have meetings on October 6 and 13 to discuss such subjects, sources told PTI here.
On October 13, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi are expected to attend the meeting of the committee, the sources said. At the first meeting of the committee which was to decide on subjects to be taken up, opposition members pressed to discussing urgently the issues of border security and internal security in the country against the backdrop of Uri terror attack which has triggered tensions between India and Pakistan. "There are aspects which cannot wait," a source said.

The aspects to be reviewed include capacity of the paramilitary forces and police forces and status of the National Counter terrorism Centre (NCTC) and NATGRID which were supposed to strengthen the internal security, the sources said. The opposition members, including Derek O'Brien of Trinamool Congress, Sitaram Yechury of CPI(M), wanted to know about the proposal of police modernisation which has been hanging fire for long, the sources said. Chidambaram then told the meeting that the Finance Ministry had not released funds for it and thus the proposal was held up, the sources said.