Wary Bengal clears decks for NSG’s eastern hub

 Once bitten twice shy. After the controversy over Tata’s small car factory in Singur, the West Bengal government is determined not to repeat the same mistake with the proposed eastern zone headquarters of the National Security Guard (NSG) in the state.
To avoid any kind of land row, the functional responsibilities of the NSG headquarters will be divided into two sections — anti-hijacking squad and the main eastern zone regional centre.

The anti-hijacking squad will come up near the Kolkata airport, while the regional centre will be set up in any of the three places — Panagarh in Burdwan district, Kalaikunda in West Midnapore and Barackpore in North 24 Parganas.

All the three places have defence airbases. This arrangement will not require a large amount of land at one place.

NSG director general JK Dutt discussed the plan with chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Friday. “The NSG’s eastern India hub will come up in West Bengal. We are looking for land and the state government is cooperating with us,” Dutta said.

“We hope there will be no controversy on this issue since the security of the eastern India is involved,” a senior official of the state home department told DNA.