Plan panel: 3-step policy for tribal areas
Taking a cue from Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who had suggested a two-pronged strategy to deal with Naxal menace, the Planning Commission, in its agenda for upcoming National Development Council (NDC) meeting on July 24, has proposed adopting a three-pronged strategy to deal with the problem. These will include
security, governance and developmental issues. Listing the issues on the agenda for the meeting, a copy of which is with this newspaper, the plan panel suggests that the issue (Special Problems of Tribal Development) needs urgent collective attention of the government both at the Centre and the states.
“It is urgently necessary to deal with the development deficit in the dominantly tribal and forest areas, especially where security problems have emerged. This requires a three-pronged approach,” the agenda document said.
Meanwhile, there appears to be change of mind in the government over the nomenclature of the Naxal problem, as in the beginning, when the plan panel circulated internally the proposed agenda for the NDC meeting, it mentioned “Left Wing Extremism” (LWE). But later in the final agenda paper it wrote Special Problems of Tribal Development. “There is certainly a change in the strategy. The term Naxalism or LWE gives a negative vibes and gives a sense that it is a security problem only. But the fact is otherwise and so the government has decided to call it Special Problems of Tribal Development,” sources in the government said.
Elaborating on the three-pronged strategy, the plan panel in the agenda paper said, firstly it is important to ensure “law and order and security” since without that no significant development is possible.
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