On the special initiative of Chief Minister Raman Singh, the Central Government has included the four newly constituted districts in to Integrated Action Plan (IAP) taking the total number of Chhattisgarh districts in this category to 14.
The new districts which have been included in the category of IAP districts are Sukma, Kondagaon, Balrampur-Ramanujganj and Gariaband. Union Minister of Rural development Jairam Ramesh in a letter sent on Friday informed the chief minister about the decision.
Notably, the Central Government has chalked out an Integrated Action Plan for the upliftment of selected Tribal and Backward Districts in which presently 82 districts, including 14 districts of Chhattisgarh, are included. As per the plan, there is provision to provide Rs 30 crore to every IAP district to carry out development works related to local needs. Chhattisgarh Government has time and again requested the centre to raise this figure to Rs 50 crore.
The Chief Minister citing the special geographical location, insurgency problem, dominance of Tribal population and other such factors, are for quite some time demanding to include six out of the 9 newly constituted districts of Chhattisgarh in to the IAP category. But the Central Government lately included 4 district while the proposal for Surajpur and Balod is still pending. Before this, the 10 districts which were included in the IAP districts initially included Bastar (jagdalpur), North Bastar (Kanker), south Bastar (Dantewada), Bijapur, Narayanpur, Surguja, Koriya, Jashpur, Kabirdham and Rajnandgaon.
Chhattisgarh's four more districts get IAP status Dr Singh had written separate letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as well as vice chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia on May 29 last year as well as on January 19, 2012 while forming the new districts to include six newly created districts in to IAP category and also increase the amount given to these districts to Rs 50 crore in place of Rs 30 crore as these districts, dominantly inhabited by tribal population and hit by Maoist insurgency, needed special attention as well as more fund to carry out small projects of local interest like construction of Anganwadis, small bridges, culverts, roads, drinking water facilities, rural electrification and other such development works.