VIJAYAWADA: Affirming that the Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) is on the wane in Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said that the activities of Maoists are now confined only to a few pockets of agency areas.
In his address at the review meeting on LWE, chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah held in Delhi on Friday, the Chief Minister said Andhra Pradesh has been battling LWE for over four decades and the multi-pronged approach, comprising security measures, development initiatives, and safeguarding the rights and entitlements of local communities under the National Policy and Action Plan, has yielded positive results.
“We have been able to restrict the Maoist activities to a few pockets in interior areas of Alluri Sitharama Raju and Parvathipuram-Manyam districts from their original strength in five districts. The LWE cadre strength has also come down to 50 in 2023 from 150 in 2019,” the Chief Minister said.
While sharing intelligence with neighbouring Odisha, Telangana, and Chhattisgarh on tackling the LWE, Andhra Pradesh government has also effectively addressed the issues of poverty, illiteracy, inadequate healthcare and unemployment which are the root cause of the LWE, the CM stated.
Jagan Mohan Reddy said under Operation Parivartana, the AP police have destroyed 9,371 acres of ganja crop in 2020-21.
“The police have registered 224 cases, arrested 141 accused and also burnt down 3.24 lakh kg ganja in the same year. While ganja crop was cultivated in 1,500 acres in 2022, it dropped down to 45 acres in 2023. To bring a change in the tribals who are cultivating ganja, district and police administrations have been encouraging them to take up alternate crops like coffee, lime, cashew, tamarind, silver oak, rajma, ground nut and others,’’ Jagan Mohan Reddy added.
He informed that these measures were supplemented with strong efforts like the distribution of RoFR pattas for bestowing ownership of 3.23 lakh acres of forest lands to 1.54 lakh eligible tribal farmers and completing laying of roads to an extent of 1,087 km in LWE areas under the Road Connectivity Project for Left Wing Extremism Affected Areas scheme.
Stating that out of the 28 Ekalavya schools sanctioned by the Union Tribal Affairs Ministry for AP, as many as 24 have been established in tribal areas ensuring access to quality education for our Tribal children, he said that the government has also initiated efforts to establish 944 communication towers in the LWE affected areas for enhancing the connectivity and ensuring a robust communication network in tribal areas.
He said that the government is also running 1,953 primary schools, 81 residential schools, 378 ashram schools and 179 pre and post-metric hostels to help students in tribal areas besides extending the benefits of ‘Amma Vodi’ and other welfare schemes through the dedicated volunteer system and village secretariats.Family doctors, with the support of village health clinics, are also extending preventive health care to tribal people, he said, stressing the need to establish more bank branches in the tribal areas.
“To prevent further spread of LWE, continuous and collaborative efforts are needed from both the Centre and the States. While maintaining law and order as a State subject, it is crucial for the Centre to provide unflinching financial and strategic support to LWE-affected States, particularly in areas of capacity-building, modernisation of the police forces and developmental initiatives,” the chief minister emphasised.