Patna, August 23: To bring the Maoists in the mainstream the Centre has called upon the eight Naxal-infested states to follow Aapki Sarkar, Aapke Dwar programme adopted by the Bihar government.
In Bihar the programme was first launched in Sikaria village under Jehanabad district in 2006. Now it has been extended to 63 panchayats under 23 blocks of Gaya, Patna, Jehanabad, Rohtas, Munger, East Champaran and Bagha police district.
The Bihar government programme aims at providing essential services such as public distribution system, health care, NREGA schemes to the people and setting up of post office, bank, police station etc in the gram panchayats. The eight states asked to follow the programme are Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, and Madhya Pradesh.
According to the circular of the Union Panchyati Raj ministry to the chief secretaries of these states weak governance structures and weakness of the local administration are both cause and effect of the Maoists violence.
However, this is not the first such programme to reach the people directly in the Naxal-hit states. Sometimes back the then Jharkhand chief minister, Babulal Marandi, tried to reach out to the ultras directly, but the move failed. A couple of years later his son was killed by the Maoists.
–Agencies