Won't push NCTC if states oppose it: Shinde

The government won't antagonise states by going ahead with the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) but the project has not been shelved, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said Wednesday.

"It is a federal structure. If they (states) don't want it, so be it," Shinde told the media when asked about progress on the proposed anti-terror agency.

"We tried to push it through. We deleted the operational details after the states objected to it. There should not have been any problems but the chief ministers still opposed it," he said.

"The issue is on," he said when asked if the project had been put into cold storage.

On June 5, both the opposition and Congress chief ministers expressed strong reservations over the NCTC, claiming it violated the principles of federal structure.

The idea of NCTC followed the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.