Plan panel for reality check in Naxal areas
After the Planning Commission red-flagged the ambitious Integrated Action Plan, the government has decided to do a reality check by asking the Plan panel to study how effective the panchayati raj system is in the worst Naxal-affected districts where the IAP is being implemented.
A row was set off after the Union home ministry rejected the Plan panel’s move to scrap the IAP in its present form saying the existing formula of giving untied money to the tune of `30 crores per district-to-district collectors in the worst Naxal-affected districts is yielding very positive results. The IAP is a key initiative of the UPA government, launched in 2010, to bridge the development deficits in backward areas, particularly the 35 worst Naxal-affected districts in the country.
To end the logjam, the government has appointed a committee of secretaries, consisting of secretaries of home, rural development and planning commission, to decide the fate of the IAP within a month’s time. While the MHA will present its case before the committee by preparing a detailed report based on certain parameters through which the IAP performance can be judged, the Plan panel has been asked to do a reality check on the effectiveness of the panchayat system in the Naxal hotbeds. MHA officials claim the panchayati raj institutions are virtually non-existent or even under Naxal control in some of the worst naxal affected districts — large parts of which have not even witnessed the presence of security forces for years. “The IAP is part of the government strategy to first deploy security forces to wrest control of areas under naxal control and then push developmental works in those areas,” an official said. The MHA’s view was conveyed by home minister Sushilkumar Shinde in a letter to the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and finance minister P. Chidambaram .
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