Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said that violence related to Left Wing Extremism (LWE) had come down by 76% in 2022 as compared to 2010, owing to the Centre’s three-pronged strategy — a “ruthless approach to curb extremist violence”, better coordination with the affected States and development through public participation.
Mr. Shah, while chairing the meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on LWE, said that for the first time in four decades, the number of deaths of civilians and security forces was under 100 last year.
He said there would be no place for violence and Left Wing Extremism in a self-reliant and new India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Home Minister said the number of civilian and security personnel killed in LWE incidents declined to 98 in 2022 from 1,005 in 2010. The number of districts affected dropped from 90 to 45. Sharing details of the measures taken by the Ministry of Home Affairs, he said since 2019, the armed forces had established 175 new camps to plug the security vacuum in the LWE-infested zones.
Mr. Shah said that as a result of the efforts, success had been achieved against the LWE outfits in difficult areas like Buddha Pahad (Jharkhand) and Chakarbandha (Bihar).
The Border Security Force’s air wing have been strengthened with the induction of new pilots and engineers in the past one year to aid the anti-LWE operations and the MHA has also taken initiatives to choke the funding to banned outfits, Mr. Shah said.
Stating that the Centre had made efforts to improve coordination with the governments in the affected States without any party or ideology related bias, the Home Minister said funds were provided to the State police forces for modernisation and assistance related to construction of fortified police stations.
As part of the goal to ensure all-round development in the affected areas, several special schemes were being implemented apart from the flagship programmes of the Central government. Construction of 17,462 km of roadways had been sanctioned to improve road connectivity, of which work on about 11,811 km had been completed.
For better mobile connectivity, 2,343 mobile towers had been installed in the first phase during the last eight years, and approval given to upgrade them to 4G. This apart, 2,542 new mobile towers were being installed in the second phase.
The Home Minister said 142 Eklavya Residential Model Schools were sanctioned in 21 years prior to 2019, while in the past three years, 103 have been sanctioned. So far, 245 Eklavya schools had been sanctioned in 90 LWE-affected districts and 121 of them were now functional. The government also facilitated the opening of 1,258 bank branches and 1,348 ATMs in the worst hit districts, besides 4,903 post offices. The skill development scheme’s scope was increased from 34 to 47 districts, he said.
Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai; Ajay Kumar Mishra and Nisith Pramanik, committee members from both Houses of Parliament; the Union Home Secertary and the Directors-General of the BSF and Central Reserve Police Force attended the meeting.
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