Badal advocates more powers for states

Favouring more powers for the states, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today said the Centre and the states must be equally powerful to combat terrorism in an effective manner.
The situation in the country was "highly volatile" due to wrong policies of the Union government and the recent bomb blasts in Hyderabad were a testimony to this, he said at a function in Hoshiarpur.
"Due to Central government�s policy of usurping powers of the state, the law and order situation in the country has been adversely affected," the Chief Minister said.
The net result of these policies was the weakening of the federal structure due to which the nation was confronted with a number of social maladies like poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and others, an official release quoting Badal said.

On the Centre's proposal to set up a National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), Badal said his party was vehemently opposed to any such idea which amounted to infringing rights of the state.
"NCTC was designed by the Union government to usurp the powers of state governments. This will not be tolerated at any cost," he said.
The Union government must hold fresh consultations with the Chief Ministers who were the biggest stakeholders in the fight against militancy, he said.
The Centre and the states should jointly re-examine the issues in its entirety.