ByIANS
Raipur : The central government Saturday assured more funds to develop Chhattisgarh’s Maoist-infested backward regions, as a team headed by Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrashekhar reviewed progress of various centrally funded schemes in the state, officials said.
Chandrashekhar, along with top officials of the union home ministry and the intelligence bureau besides other ministries, held discussions in two sessions, including one with the state’s Chief Secretary Shivraj Singh, to build up infrastructure in the impoverished but mineral-rich state.
“The chief secretary gave a detailed presentation on the latest status of various central government-funded schemes for rural development, road infrastructure, employment generation and healthcare,” a top official said.
He added that the central team will pump in more funds for the state, mainly in poverty-hit interior forests in southern Bastar region where rebels have been running a parallel government for years.
The team informed the state government that the centre will abide by its commitment to push development and build up infrastructure at the village level in the Bastar region, including worst hit Bijapur and Dantewada districts.
“In a separate meeting on Maoist terrorism, Director General of Police Vishwaranjan briefed the central team about the rebels’ grip over the state’s southern tip of Bastar, and sought increased support for rehabilitation of about 50,000 people displaced by Maoist violence since June 2005 who have now settled in 23 government-run makeshift relief camps,” the official stated.
Chhattisgarh has been the epicentre of Maoist violence since June 2005 after Bastar’s tribals launched a civil militia movement, Salwa Judum (‘Campaign for Peace’), with arms and monetary support from the state government, against decade-old Maoist dominance.
The movement has backfired as insurgents orchestrated several cold-blooded killings of security personnel and civilians in Bastar in the recent past including massacre of 55 cops in March this year in Bijapur.