SPECIAL REPORT
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The Hurdle Run |
12th Plan to focus on development deficit in Naxal-hit areas
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Chief minister of Chhattisgarh Raman Singh and chief minister of Gujarat Narendra
Modi, during the home minister's conference on internal security in New Delhi
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A FORCE Report
The 12th Plan, the first year of which begins next fiscal, will give top priority to the Naxal-affected districts where development deficit has given rise to Left Wing Extremism over the years. The UPA government is busy working out a package for all tribal-dominated areas spanning across all tribal-dominated districts in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal.
With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh repeatedly pointing out that Maoist violence cannot be stopped with the help of guns alone, and that all-round development could usher in lasting peace, the Planning Commission has finalised the contours of a central India Tribal Development Plan, which will be executed from April 2012 and will seek to tone up governance.
The Planning Commission, of which Dr Singh is the Chairman, is of the view that while executing development works there is a need to ensure improvement in overall governance in the tribal-dominated districts. “As desired by the Prime Minister, the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) plan would essentially cover all those areas where Naxals either have influence or can have influence in future because of development deficit,” a senior official said.
The IAP will be subsumed under the new tribal development plan. Besides, several other schemes in tribal areas such as food nutrition scheme for KBK (Koraput, Bolangir and Kalahandi) districts in Orissa will be made part of the new plan.
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For the first two years of the 12th five-year-plan, money will flow uniformly to all districts for empowering gram sabhas. Thereafter, the fund release will be conditional. Only those districts that meet conditions for fund release in the first two years will continue to get money for development. “We are in the process of finalising the monetary outlay,” said an official.
The new plan envisages that money will be provided to each district for strengthening village bodies (gram sabhas) to enable them to carry out development works like other Panchayati Raj institutions in the rest of rural India. “Actually, tribals must be given a greater say in carrying out their area-specific development works,” a Planning Commission official noted.
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