left-wing extremism on NDC meet agenda
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called a meeting of the National Development Council on July 24, where the leaders, including the chief ministers of all the states, will discuss the issue of the left-wing extremism and will try and evolve consensus on tackling the menace.
Informing about the scheduled meeting, sources in the government said, though the meeting has primarily been called to approve the mid-term appraisal of the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-12), for the first time the left-wing extremism is going to be discussed in the NDC.
“The meeting will provide a forum to the Central leadership to take all states on board on the adverse fallout of the menace on the development of the country. This also assumes importance in the wake of the Prime Minister’s assertion that left-wing extremism posed a single biggest threat to national security,” the sources said.
Interestingly, the Planning Commission had never highlighted security and terrorism related issues involving Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir in the NDC meets earlier, despite they had also assumed cancerous proportions.
However, the panel’s resolve to discuss the left-wing extremism obviously comes in the wake of repeated assaults by left-wing guerrillas on the security forces in Chhattisgarh and other affected states.
“In dealing with the challenge of Naxalism, we will pursue a policy that genuinely seeks to address developmental concerns at the grass roots, while firmly enforcing the writ of the state,” the Prime Minister had said in his address on the first anniversary of the UPA-II. The chief ministers of the Naxalism-ravaged states were clamouring for more firepower and resources to tackle the problem.
There are reports that the Commission at the behest of the Prime Minister is likely to finalise an Integrated Action Plan (IAP) for the left-wing extremism-affected areas soon to provide funds to the tune of Rs 100 crore for each for the 34 Naxal-affected districts.
The IAP in its final form is expected to be unfurled at the NDC wherein the chief ministers would be asked to share their views on ways to contain the problem. Some top officials of the panel have already begun to argue that the Commission should formulate an independent mechanism to route funds.
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