UPA to continue special incentives for Maoist-hit areas for 4 more years

NEW DELHI: UPA has decided to continue special incentives for Maoist-hit areas for four more years.

The decision comes just days after the Darbha carnage, where Congress lost almost its entire Chhattisgarh leadership, and after calls for strong-arm tactics to end the Maoist menace.

The Planning Commission has circulated a Cabinet note to extend the government's showpiece Integrated Action Plan for development in Maoist-hit areas for four more years and has decided to stick to the home ministry's stand to let district magistrates handle IAP's implementation.

A flurry of steps have been taken over the last few days to fast-track projects in Maoist affected areas, like road projects and the proposal to set up telecom towers in remote Maoist areas, after a meeting chaired by Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth on Tuesday.
Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Thursday said he agreed with Tribal Affairs Minister Kishore Chandra Deo's remarks to ET that tribal rights and infrastructure development was important in Maoist areas. The IAP programme over the next four years will get an annual allocation of Rs 1,000 crore and the fresh proposal says each of the 82 IAP districts will be given Rs 5 crore annually.

The remaining Rs 590 crore will be distributed among the districts on the basis of their population and area. The 82 districts to be covered under IAP now, including an additional 22 districts, are spread over nine states Rs 25 crore and Rs 30 crore was released to each of the 60 districts under IAP during 2010-11 and 2011-12 respectively.

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh had last year, in two letters to Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, advocated that local panchayat heads should be involved in the decision-making process under the IAP scheme and not just the district collector and superintendent of police as per the scheme designed by the MHA.

Ramesh also wanted the scheme to be suitably restructured in the 12th Five Year Plan and said there was a case for the Ministry of Panchayati Raj to be given the responsibility of implementation and coordination of the scheme.

But the MHA was against this with Shinde writing to the prime minister last August objecting to any unilateral move to restructure the scheme. At a meeting with state officials last October, the ministry also secured the consent of all states for continuance of IAP in its present form.

The Plan panel has hence decided to stick to the present system devised by the home ministry. The nature of major works or projects taken up under the IAP include construction of schools, anganwadi centres, etc.