Chidambaram for radical changes in home ministry

Proposing a "bold, thorough and radical restructuring" of his ministry that includes bifurcation, home minister P Chidambaram today unveiled a blueprint to tackle terrorism, and said the new National Centre for Counter Terrorism (NCCT) will be set up by next year.

Presenting a road map "A New Architecture for India's Security", Chidambaram said given the imperatives and the challenges of the times, "A division of the current functions of the ministry of home affairs is unavoidable."

The NCCT tasks involve preventing a terror strike, containing an attack and effectively responding to it. "Such an organisation does not exist today. It has to be created from scratch," he said, noting that the US was able to set up such a counter terroorism unit within 36 months of the 9/11 attacks.

Addressing officers and personnel of the Intelligence Bureau and various paramilitary forces, he said, "The home minister should devote the whole of his/her time and energy to matters relating to security".

The home minister said the broad architecture of the new security system was an outcome of last year's Mumbai attacks. "A billion plus people felt they had been humiliated, and the country had been brought to its knees by a small band of terrorists," he recalled.

"I, therefore, propose a "bold, thorough and radical restructuring of the security architecture at the national level," the home minister said, and added that it would consist of political, administrative, intelligence and enforcement elements.