West Bengal to get first NIA police station

West Bengal is set to get its first dedicated police station for the National Investigation Agency (NIA) at National Buildings Construction Corporation Square in Kolkata’s New Town. 

Governor R. N. Ravi, in a notification, officially declared the space allocated to the agency at the 15^th floor of NBCC Square, Action Area III, New Town that also houses the regional branch office of NIA since 2014. 

A proposal to set up an NIA police station in the State was pending under the previous Trinamool Congress government but was never implemented. However, the new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government cleared the proposal in a Cabinet meeting last week.

With this new police station, NIA will now be able to lodge FIRs in connection with any case in West Bengal immediately in Kolkata. Earlier, investigations in West Bengal could begin only after a copy of that FIR was received from Delhi. 

This will be the 17^th police station of the NIA across the country. The other 16 police stations are already operational in New Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Imphal, Jammu, Kochi, Lucknow, Mumbai, Raipur, Ranchi, and Vishakhapatnam.