Govt sanctions Rs 2,079 cr to tackle Naxal challenge

The government has sanctioned fresh funds totalling Rs 2,079 crore to the CRPF and nine Naxal-hit states to combat Maoist challenge with a bulk of the money earmarked for the central force.

Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde at his monthly press conference today said of the Rs 2,079 crore an amount of Rs 1,981 crore has been sanctioned to CRPF for bolstering the capabilities of the lead anti-Naxal operations force of the country.

Shinde said the remaining Rs 98.85 crore was released by his ministry as an "advance" fund to the nine states under Security Related Expenditure.

"Under the Security Related Expenditure Scheme, on May 28 an amount of Rs 9885.46 lakh was released as advance to nine Left Wing Extremism affected states of Andhra Pradesh (Rs 992.61 lakh), Bihar (Rs 1371.66 lakh), Chhattisgarh (Rs 1398 lakh), Jharkhand (Rs 2421.30 lakh) and Madhya Pradesh (Rs 55.75 lakh)," Shinde said.

The other beneficiary states were Maharashtra (Rs 738.51 lakh), Odisha (Rs 1,780.81 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (Rs 108.82 lakh) and West Bengal (Rs 1,018.73 lakh).

The SRE funds are meant to upgrade and modernise the state security apparatus to combat extremism.

Image: CRPF personnel are a common sight in Naxalism-affected areas| Photograph: Dipak Chakraborty/Rediff.com