West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is spearheading a team of seven Chief Ministers opposing the controversial National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), called on the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Wednesday evening.
During the meeting, Prime Minister assured the Chief Minister that he had requested the Home Minister to find ways to take the concerns of the state governments on board on the issue of the NCTC.
Earlier, the Prime Minister wrote to the seven Chief Ministers - Mamata, Odisha's Naveen Patnaik, Bihar's Nitish Kumar, Tamil Nadu's J Jayalalithaa, Gujarat's Narendra Modi, Madhya Pradesh's Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Tripura's Manik Sharkar assuring that Home Minister P Chidambaram would consult over the functioning of the elite anti-terror group.
Apart from the concern regarding the NCTC, the Chief Minister raised two more issues, namely, the leakage in Farakka Barrage and the grant of Presidential assent to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration Bill.
Prime Minister said that he shared the Chief Minister's concern and assured her that the Ministry of Water Resources is working on plugging the leakages in Gate No. 16 and Gate No. 13 and the leakages will be plugged during March 2012.
On the issue of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration Bill, Manmohan Singh informed Mamata that the Ministry of Home Affairs is expeditiously processing the Bill in the light of the issues raised by various Ministries and the comments of the State Governments.
Prime Minister assured the Chief Minister that the Ministry of Home Affairs will complete the processing of the Bill soon.
