NEW DELHI: A confidential report on Left-wing extremism (LWE) has suggested that development activities in Maoist-affected areas have slowed down due to attacks by insurgents who consistently target roads, electricity lines, power plants, railway tracks, Panchayat Bhavans, school buildings, and mobile towers.
Maoist-affected states such as Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha are mineral-rich, and the report has mentioned targeted attacks on the state-owned National Mineral Development Corporation in Chhattisgarh. Maoists attacked a power plant in Bihar in 2013 while railway tracks were targeted in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar in 2013 and 2014.
The report prepared by Central intelligence agencies said that Maoists had targeted pipelines of Essar Group in Chhattisgarh twice this year.
“There were around 50 attacks on various infrastructure development projects in Naxal-affected states till June 2014, including the attacks on 19 forest roads, while 112 targeted attacks were reported in 2013,” said the report.
The report stated that Maoists had been systematically targeting the “Gramin Sadak Yojna” envisaged for linking the remote villages in Jharkhand and Odisha. At least three such incidents each were reported from these two states in 2014. Maoists also targeted a telephone exchange and mobile towers in Bihar and Chhattisgarh, and at least eight incidents were reported till June.
The Centre recently gave approval for providing mobile services in the 2,199 areas affected by LWE.
The services will augment public communication facilities in these backward regions and also provide a platform for mobile services such as m-commerce and mobile-based information dissemination and easy access to governance and policing.
According to the report, at least 630 incidents of Maoist violence were reported till July 15, 2014 across these states.
The report suggested that Maoists’ finances were still strong, and that they had been collecting money from all levels, from individuals to businesses.
The main sources of funding to Maoists come from government contractors, timber contractors, bamboo and tendu leaf contractors as well as mining contractors.