In the first prime ministerial visit in 30 years to Dantewada in Chhattisgarh —the Maoist hotbed — Narendra Modi on Saturday promised better connectivity in the region via rail and road. In tune with this promise, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) is also working on plans to take up the road building exercise afresh in left Wing Extremist (lWE) areas.
Road construction activities, which have taken a severe hit in Naxal-affected areas over the years, may see fresh activity with the Government initiating the process of infrastructure development, particularly in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, using pre-fabricated bridges and roads.
Since 2009, when the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved a Road Requirement Plan (RRP) plan for road building in Naxal areas of 34 districts in eight States at a cost of Rs7,300 crore for about 5,477 km road length, a total of 3,471 km was developed under the programme at a cost of Rs4,617 crore till February this year.
Even after the Modi Government took charge in May last year, only 547 kms were added till February this year, against 544 kms built in the previous fiscal year.
“Development has been extremely slow as road developers have stayed away from bidding due to the Naxal threat. We have now floated fresh tenders inviting bids for constructing roads in the areas, using pre-fabricated bridges and roads, which will be faster, when compared to the traditional road building ways,” said a senior official from the MoRTH.
“Our Minister (Nitin Gadkari) is keen on expediting the road construction work in the left wing extremist (lWE) affected States, particularly Chhattisgarh, as there has been a spurt of Naxal-related incidents in the recent past. Till we don’t have robust infrastructure, fighting the Naxal menace is impossible,” he said.
According to the Government data, 164 Naxal attacks have been reported in the first three months of 2015, which is significant increase when compared with 95 incidents in the corresponding period last year. The overall situation is also far from better with 314 incidents reported in the 10 affected states against 280 last year from January to March.
“We have not been able to find contractors in Bastar region in Chhattisgarh and Malkangiri district of Odisha on account of security concerns causing massive delays,” said the official.
“Some projects in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra are also affected,” he said.
Unlike the UPA, which had almost decided to junk the phase II of Road Requirement Plan (RRP) plan citing non-availability of road developers in the region and non-cooperation from states in fighting the Naxal problem, the NDA dispensation has decided to tackle the problem, with the help of local state machinery.
Statistics show that four States — Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra — of the 10 lWE-affected States are ruled by BJP, while Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and West Bengal being led by regional parties.
In the past, the Centre has taken several initiatives to implement the lWE programme but have not been successful.
In March 2013, the MoRTH had asked the States to constitute district-level committees headed by district magistrates, comprising of Central armed forces, public works departments and contractors. To speed up work in non-responsive lWE projects, the Government also relaxed the qualification criteria for contractors to encourage larger participation. Going a step further, the Government also allowed clubbing of estimates, and splitting of works where response to tenders was poor.