NIC meet to discuss destruction of public property: PM

Pained at agitations resulting in destruction of public property, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said a meeting of National Integration Council (NIC) will be convened next month to reach a national consensus.     

"It is matter of serious concern that dissent and agitations, over any kind of issues, have been increasingly finding expression in mindless destruction of public property, attacks on police posts and other government establishments," he said.     

Addressing the concluding session of the two-day Governors Conference here, he said he was "constrained" and felt "sad" to observe that it was not in the national interest and would hurt progress.     

Observing that in colonial times, public property was a symbol of colonial power, the Prime Minister said today it belonged to the tax-payer, "to the same people who in a state of motivated frenzy, egged on by partisan interests, seek to destroy it".     

"This is a matter of utmost concern, and calls for the most serious introspection at the national level," he said.     

At a time when the world looked upon India as a "rising power", he said the Indian state could not be allowed to become so diminished that it could not even protect public property.     

The Prime Minister said he has decided to call a meeting of the NIC next month to discuss these issues and reach a national consensus.