Chhattisgarh Development Commissioner Vivek Dhand talks to Sreelatha Menon about the problems faced in Naxal-hit districts and the mitigation initiatives taken.
Home minister P Chidambaram has made an appeal to administrators in the Naxal-hit districts to work towards “winning the hearts and minds of the people”. How do you plan to go about this?
On the one hand, there is a genuine problem of access. Until 1999 Bastar was a single district. After that it was divided into three. In 2005, it became five. And now, two more districts are being created. It is bigger than Kerala. So, governance is a difficult thing.
Another issue that requires immediate attention is purchasing forest produce from tribals and giving them a minimum support price. In Bastar alone, tribals produce tamarind worth Rs 150 crore a year. There are other products such as kosa, mahua and bamboo, but the villagers don’t get the value they deserve.
So, why doesn’t the state government do something about it?
State resources are limited. We cannot do everything. The minor forest produce federation is procuring tendu, sal and gum. We also need to help set up processing units. We plan to help self-help groups of women but more needs to be done.
Has the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme been implemented in the Naxal-hit districts of your state? Many villages have been evacuated and there are no panchayats. People are living in jungles. How do you run these schemes?
It is not too bad. Our main problem is that we are unable to pay wages to people, as there are no banks and post offices at most places. And, it is mandatory to make payments through these.
Tamil Nadu has defied payments via banks and post offices and has been paying cash all through. Why can’t you do the same?
We don’t want to defy the Centre. All we are asking for is opening more post offices and banks. As for the deserted villages, it is not true that these are not functioning in the normal mode. There are about 200 panchayats with no sarpanches and where gram sachivs have been asked to leave. The Gumta block is the most affected. The administration has genuine problems in reaching some of these places. Schools have been burnt to the ground.
When you hear about villages being burnt down and people being picked up, what do you do? Won’t such action by police alienate the people and make your job difficult?
Villages were burnt recently, on April 6, which happens to be the anniversary of 76 CRPF jawans’ killing by Naxals in Dantewada. There may have been a clash between pro- and anti-Naxal groups, but it was misreported that people were killed. I had visited the place with a Central team, led by Harsh Mander. We found people who were reportedly dead were very much alive.
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Do you ever ask the people their version of the story? How do you want to win their confidence when the police are breaking into their houses and burning their wares?
This is one side of the story. Wherever police atrocities are found, we take action. But I cannot talk about that. I can talk about the initiatives being taken for the development of the state.
What are the initiatives taken?
One of the major initiatives is combating malnutrition. We are giving one kg of black gram for Rs 5, along with 35 kg of rice and two kg of iodised salt. Our public distribution system (PDS) is very sound.
But don’t you feel the police need a makeover to being more friendly and sympathetic towards people? For instance, C P Joshi said they should even change their uniform.
C P Joshi was talking about Rajasthan. Didn’t the 1993 Bombay bombings happen in spite of the police? The truth is that all are scared for life and we can’t police every house. It is a guerrilla warfare that one has to face. During a recent workshop in Delhi on Naxal-hit areas, you blamed the missing railway connectivity for Naxal inroads. Being custodians of the forests has not helped tribals. Apart from very little railway connectivity in most of Bastar, just 50 per cent tribals have access to electricity. The Rajiv Gandhi Vidyutikaran Yojana did not cover villages with less than 300 people. We fought tooth and nail and they brought down the ceiling to 100. But villages in forests have very often a population of less than 20. So, don’t they deserve electricity? Their children go to cities such as Delhi and Mumbai and live in hostels. They see how people are living comfortable lives. Don’t they feel bad that after 70 years of freedom, the people of Bastar don’t even have electricity?
So, have forests obstructed development? When we were constructing roads, 115 of these projects were stopped as they passed through forests and the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) came in our way. In fact, FCA comes in the way of every bit of development here. In Bastar, the available irrigation is just seven per cent of the potential, while it is 40 per cent elsewhere. In forest areas, you don’t get clearance for any project.
Even if you get a clearance, the value of forest and the compensatory afforestation jacks up the costs to the levels that no one can afford it. So, what will 50,000 youth in Bastar do if they don’t even have electricity for self-employment? They can’t buy wheat as they can’t run flour mills without electricity.
What is your strategy to employ the youth?
We have set up industrial training institutes under the National Rural Livelihood Mission. But what we urgently require are residential schools. The government has agreed to using Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) funds for these schools in two districts. We are demanding that SSA funds should fund residential schools in all districts. We can have such schools on highways. The Ashram schools can also get assistance. Instead of protecting 20 schools that are several km away from one another, it is better that one school houses all these students and teachers.
Why is the state, instead of partnering with the civil society, always antagonising it? For instance, the state jailed Binayak Sen, threw out activist Himanshu Kumar and destroyed his ashram.
Who says so? Ramakrishna Mission has been running PDS shops, schools and hospitals in the worst-affected area of Narayanpur. If others come forward to take up responsibility, we would certainly work with them. But most activists are in a rush. We have no problem with critics. But they should also take up responsibility rather than just criticise or tell half-truth.