NSG hubs to be set up very quickly: Chidambaram

The four new hubs of the elite National Security Guard (NSG) will be set up "very quickly", Home Minister P Chidambaram today said.

"It will be a very short time frame. But, I cannot give the exact date," he said when asked how soon the new NSG hubs, which the government decided to set up in the wake of Mumbai terror strikes, would be functional.

The Home Minister said government will recruit people and impart training to them before deploying them forthe task.

"We will have to recruit people, take them on deputation from army and central para-military forces, train them and deploy them," he said.

Meanwhile, some of the already trained people would be deployed in the new set up, he said.

Asked why there would be no NSG hub in Gujarat in the first phase, Chidambaram said it was explained at the recent conference of chief ministers on internal security that all state capitals would have such hubs in due course of time.

The Home Minister recently discussed the proposal with heads of the army and the NSG to speed up the process of setting up the hubs in Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad in the first phase.

In the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks, the government has decided to immediately set up NSG hubs in the four cities followed by more such hubs in virtually every state capital.