Moily rues his reports gathering dust

Senior Congress leader Veerappa Moily, whose suggestions on administrative reforms -- including for setting up a national intelligence agency -- are being considered by the United Progressive Alliance government, on Friday rued that his reports were gathering dust.

Speaking at a conference on terrorism and national security organised by the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry , Moily said, "None of my reports were seriously looked into."

Moily-headed Administrative Reforms Commission has over the last one-and-a-half year submitted reports on terrorism, conflict resolution, police reforms and ethics in government.

"My recommendations required minimal changes in the system and would have given the country the much-needed grassroot mechanism to deal with the situation'' after the Mumbai terrorist attacks, he said.

Moily had suggested the creation of a federal investigating agency on the lines of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the US by amending the National Security Act, which empowers the government to take those detrimental to national security under preventive detention.

The home ministry, sources said, was closely looking at amending the Act for creating a national anti-terrorism body.

Moily said 80 per cent of his recommendations could have been implemented administratively, 15 per cent required changes in existing laws and only 5 per cent needed constitutional changes.

Moily regretted that his suggestion for creating a national investigation agency had denigrated into a tussle between the Centre and state governments.

The country's top security experts who spoke at the conference asked the government to set up a counter-terrorism body to coalesce intelligence and plan against attacks by terrorists.

Brajesh Mishra, former National Security Advisor, Ved Marwah, former governor, Ajit Kumar Doval, former director of Intelligence Bureau (IB) and B Raman, former additional cabinet secretary, spoke at the conference.

Mishra said the intelligence agencies had no culture of sharing information, which he added was one of the reasons for their failure to prevent the strike in Mumbai.

"The heads of IB, Research and Analysis Wing and Military Intelligence would come to me with inputs but not speak to one another,'' he said.

Marwah, a former governor and founder of the National Security Guards, said he was pained to see "dilution of the role of the NSG over the years.''

He said the NSG had been raised as an anti-insurgency force but its commandos were being deputed to guard politicians who were not entitled to its cover.

Doval said India needed to launch covert operations against Pakistan and have deterrent anti-terrorism mechanisms to meet the challenge of technological wars from terrorists and their mentors like Pakistan.

"We must make the cost of war unbearable for Pakistan,'' he said. Doval said the Indian leadership should never lower guard against Pakistan, which continues to see India as an adversary per cent to Rs 6.06 crore during the quarter.