Chidambaram’s big plans for NSG rolled back

The Opposition is baying for his blood, the Supreme Court is mulling over including him in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, and his cabinet colleagues are the biggest critics of his pet project. Union home minister P Chidambaram has never been lonelier in the several decades he has been in public life, and his isolation has now proved to be the biggest stumbling block in reforming India’s security architecture — the project he started after the terror attacks in Mumbai on November 26, 2008.

On October 14 this year, Chidambaram handed his cabinet secretary Ajit Seth a letter to speed up the process for getting cabinet clearance for the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) project. His cabinet colleagues, top sources in the government told DNA, have rejected the proposed structure, and it has been postponed indefinitely.

The national security advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, sources said, was unhappy that the technical intelligence agency NTRO was slated to collaborate with the NCTC. Menon was clearly against the proposal and had already expressed this to the prime minister.   

But Chidambaram argued that the agency with an annual budget of nearly Rs1,800 crore was not producing any intelligence and was bogged down with controversies. In fact, he ensured that the investigations into the Delhi High Court blasts were carried out without any involvement of the NTRO.

Instead, Chidambaram has been pushing NATGRID (National Intelligence Grid) as a replacement for NTRO. While a group of ministers had mandated NTRO to be the lead technical intelligence agency after the Kargil war on the lines of the American spy agency NSA and the British agency GCHQ (General Communications HQ), clearly NTRO was not his top choice.

Chidambaram even took a delegation to GCHQ, but NTRO was kept out. Instead NATGRID, IB and R&AW representatives were taken along. The GCHQ has now become the template for NATGRID, posing an existential threat to the future of NTRO.
The union home minister is also battling the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chief Nandan Nilekani because he feels it conflicts with his ministry’s population registration initiatives. But with Nilekani reporting to the prime minister through the planning commission, Chidambaram’s worry about duplication of effort is not finding a sympathetic ear within the Cabinet.

Union finance minister Pranab Mukherji is also opposed to the creation of NATGRID and at one cabinet meeting described it as a “Gestapo-like organisation”, sources said. He has been clearing its projects with great reluctance despite a comprehensive presentation on safeguards to the Cabinet by the NATGRID chief Raghu Raman earlier this year. Even their plan to construct a building for its headquarters in Delhi is stuck with the planning commission, which raised basic objections even on minor issues like the height of the proposed building.

Chidambaram’s isolation is also affecting the modernisation of the elite National Security Guards (NSG) who were the heroes of the 26/11 operation. Chidambaram wanted it to come under the operational role of the NCTC. With his cabinet colleagues not ready to give it clearance, this has been pending indefinitely. Worse, it has created huge bottlenecks forcing the ministry of home affairs (MHA) to scale down their original plans to expand the NSG.

Immediately after 26/11, the MHA decided to create two regional centres in Kolkata and Hyderabad along with four smaller hubs in Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Each regional centre was supposed to have two Special Action Groups (SAGs) which conducted the 26/11 operation and two Special Ranger Groups (SRGs) responsible for VIP protection. In a meeting last month, the MHA scaled down the plan to a single battalion each.

But even this has led to major headaches in training and deployment. Earlier, every NSG commando used to fire at least 90 rounds per week to maintain their sharp skills. Today, they are firing less than 30 rounds per week at their headquarters in Manesar and in the Mumbai hub. The NSG is also struggling to maintain a 5,000-man force with the army and the Central Police Organisations (CPO) already hard pressed with their deployments. The MHA plans to prune the NSG to about 2,500 commandos.

Their requirement of 128 new sniper rifles has been pending for years. The current PSG-1 rifles were procured in the 1990s and have already outlived their scheduled barrel life. The new requirements have been clubbed with other CPOs which have entirely different specifications. Even an upgraded PSG-1’A’ has not come through. During 26/11, the NSG had to borrow automatic grenade launchers that proved to be critical for the operation’s success. But three years later, a plan to buy under-barrel grenade launchers is still pending.

The NSG commandos are still using helmets which are at least 20 years old. The police use a level-3 helmet for resisting grenade splinters but the NSG - an elite room-intervention and hostage-rescue force - need level 4 helmets. Everyone understands the need to have helmets fitted with night vision devices but very little progress has been made on that front. Other basics like a fire-proof dungaree uniforms are still awaited too.