Comments
The Government should focus on development and not on deploying paramilitary forces in the agency (tribal) areas to come to grips with the Maoist problem, according to the Union Minister for Rural Development, Jairam Ramesh.
He gave a call to Girijans to participate in the development works and not to lend support to the Maoists.
He was addressing Girijan farmers at Konthili village in Hukumpeta Mandal in Visakhapatnam district on Sunday at a public meeting organised to mark the plantation of the two millionth fruit bearing tree as part of Hariyali 60 lakh fruit tree plantation programme taken up by the Naandi Foundation in association with Global Livelihoods Network and Mahindra & Mahindra.
He invited the Maoists to participate in the development process and help the community.
He said in the Paderu agency area, extremist activity was the highest in the State. He said the Government was always willing to hold talks with any group, clarifying that the Maoists need not lay down arms to participate in the talks.
He urged Girijans to help the Government demilitarise the region by actively participating in the development process taken up by the Government and organisations such as Naandi Foundation.
“We have to defeat the Maoists politically and psychologically through development,” he said.
promises Rs 1-crore allocation
He made a promise to allocate Rs 1 crore from MPLADS to building a model PHC at Raghavendra Nagar panchayat in G. Kothavedi mandal and Rs 1 crore towards building 2,200 anganwadi buildings apart from funding one ambulance each for the 11 tribal mandals in the agency area.
The State Tribal Welfare Minister, P. Balaraju, thanked Jairam Ramesh for his dedication to the cause of welfare of tribals.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.