Centre sanctions another Rs 2,079 cr to tackle Naxal challenge

New Delhi: 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.[caption id=“attachment_863277” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde. Image courtesy PIB[/caption] 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 (SRE). “Under the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) Scheme, on 28 May an amount of Rs 9,885.46 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. The Ministry of Home Affairs, under the first sanction of Rs 1,425.60 crore to the force, enhanced the facilities of training in the paramilitary with special impetus on jungle warfare and commando tactics. While some training facilities of the CRPF will be upgraded using the new amount, one CoBRA commandos school at Belgaum (Karnataka) and a counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism school at Chittoor (Andhra Pradesh) will be raised while three new training schools will come up at Latur (Maharashtra), Jodhpur (Rajasthan)and Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), Shinde said, has also “revised” the construction cost from Rs 884.10 crore to Rs 1,440.75 crore for residential and office facilities of the 10 CoBRA battalions of the CRPF, raised to undertake special operations against Naxalites. Shinde also said the paramilitary forces will use their engineering wings to construct road and other vital infrastructure at the place of their deployment in Naxal-hit states as there were “certain problems” in getting the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) to do the job. Last year, the CRPF had already started this wing in its battalions while two other Central forces deployed for anti-Naxal operations—ITBP and BSF—already have these specialised units. Shinde also said arrangements were being made to base the unmanned aerial vehicles in Chhattisgarh which will aid ground forces in getting advance information on the area of possible operation. The base would soon come up in Bhilai in the state with NTRO technicians helping CRPF engineers and officers. PTI