NEW DELHI: Maoist-hit districts in
Bihar have shrunk to 16 from 22 with Patna, Bhojpur, Sheohar, Sitamarhi, Begusarai and Khagaria excluded from the new list approved by the home ministry. Also, Muzaffarpur and Nawada are no longer among the 30 districts recategorised as worst-affected even as Gaya, Aurangabad, Banka and Jamui remain so.
The positive outcome of counter-left wing extremism initiatives of the Centre and state government is visible in
Odisha as well, where six districts — Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Gajapati, Dhenkanal, Ganjam and Jajpur — have shed the ‘Maoist-affected’ tag. In
Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, three districts each have been excluded from the ‘affected’ list. These are Sarguja, Jashpur and Korea in Chhattisgarh and Prakasam, Kurnool and Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh.
Interestingly, West Bengal now has just one affected district. Jhargram, which was carved out of the state’s Maoist-hit districts, now replaces the four districts of West Medinipur, Bankura, Purulia and Birbhum in the list.
Aheri in Maharashtra and Deogarh and Pakur in Jharkhand were also declared as free from Maoist influence as part of a review of home ministry’s security-related expenditure scheme. The affected districts were recategorised based on level of violence and Maoist activity/movement over the past three years. “The geographical area of Naxalite influence has significantly reduced after the review brought down number of affected districts to 90 from 126 by exclusion of 44 districts and addition of eight,” said a senior home ministry officer.
Of the 90 LWE-affected districts now listed, the maximum (19) are in Jharkhand, followed by 16 in Bihar, 15 in Odisha, 14 in Chhattisgarh, eight in
Telangana, six in Andhra Pradesh, three each in Maharashtra, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, two in
Madhya Pradesh and one in West Bengal.
The home ministry on Monday attributed the shrinking arc of Maoists’ influence to its multi-pronged strategy involving security as well as development interventions.
Among the prominent development works undertaken in Maoist-hit areas are setting up of 2,239 mobile towers across 10 affected states and proposed installation of 4,072 more. Of the 4,072 towers coming up under Phase II of the mobile towers scheme, 1,054 will be in Jharkhand, 1,028 in Chhattisgarh, 483 in Odisha, 429 in Andhra Pradesh, 412 in Bihar, 207 in West Bengal, 179 in Uttar Pradesh, 136 in Maharashtra, 118 in Telangana and 26 in Madhya Pradesh.
As many as eight critical bridges will connect Naxalite-infested areas under Phase 1 of the rural road project that covers Telangana, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and UP. Under the road connectivity project (phase 2) proposals worth Rs 10,781 crore have been approved by the Cabinet.