Due to the slow movement in the commission’s consideration of his proposal to execute the IAP by the block rather than by the district, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has written to its Deputy Chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, asking him to review his objections to the suggestions made on tackling the naxalism issue — the commission had decided to exclude two districts of Bihar, Sitamarhi and West Champaran, from the IAP.
After a review, the Centre increased the number of these districts from 60 to 78. Each district is given Rs. 30 crore annually to take up any work or project demanded by the people of the region. Projects are cleared by a committee comprising the District Magistrate, the Superintendent of Police and the District Forest Officer.
‘Seriously affected’
Mr. Ramesh underlined the need to include Sitamarhi and West Champaran on the ground that they were “seriously affected” by Maoist violence and were vulnerable to infiltration as they shared a border with Nepal.
Mr. Ramesh called upon the commission to move with urgency in treating blocks, instead of districts, as the unit. He wanted the committee not to take up work in “easy blocks” while ignoring the “disturbed” blocks, which actually needed greater attention.
Mr. Ramesh laid stress on adopting a block-based approach to the IAP for, individual blocks within a district did happen to be affected by Maoist violence even though the district itself may not be classified as LWE-affected.
“The quicker we move to a block-based IAP, the better off we will be,” he told Mr. Ahluwalia.
Mr. Ramesh has initiated a move to involve the political spectrum in the execution of these works in the wake of complaints from local representatives.
The Minister has made a suggestion that political constituencies be involved in identifying the projects to be executed while the task of picking the beneficiary gram panchayat could still be left to the committee.
When Mr. Ramesh took up the matter with Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, the latter left it to the discretion of the Planning Commission to take a decision.