Aapki Sarkar, Aapke Dwar

Maoists-hit states asked to adopt Aapki Sarkar, Aapke Dwar

Patna, (BiharTimes): 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.

While the above scheme can be commended, it remains to be seen how much it will help in bringing the Maoists back in the mainstream.
Most government schemes fails because the people responsible for implementing these schemes are corrupt and hardly 10% of the money allocated reach the targeted receipients.Rajeev Gandhi's own words.
Unless the government sees to it that this leakage is removed, the naxalite menace will remain.
The second cause is that their grievance is never heard.
The whole system is so corrupt that only the rich are heard and the poor are treated as dirt.
Nitish Kumar must be be making some effort to remove the above lacunae if the scheme is successful.
But will the other states succeed?
Do they have the will?