Truth with Substance
Dilli Darwaza
9 Ch Secys to Shinde.
By Soumitra Bose
Chief Secretaries of 9 Naxal-affected, Naxalism-effected states UP,
Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Shiv Jharkhand), Madhya Pradesh,
Maharahshtra, Odisha, West Bengal covering 60 Left Extremism Districts (LEDs)
in 9 states (mentioned above) taking green-signal from their respective
Chief Minsters self-assuredly appealed to the Raisina Hill situated
North Block housing Union Home Ministry bosses and Home Minister Sushil
Kumar Shinde to plead their respective states’ case before Environment
Ministry for allowing their states to mine forest land/s in all 60
districts for stones and use the same for construction of highways,
state roads and rural roads. All this for inter-rural,
inter-rural-district connectivity in the 9 states and out of them.
At present, the pace of construction of high ways and roads in badly
Naxal-affected areas is extremely slow as environmental regulations ban
mining of forested land for road construction material and only revenue
land can be mined for such a purpose. Above states pointed to the Home
Ministry that there is hardly any revenue lands in the 60 worst affected
Naxal Districts and hence stones are mined from far-off revenue lands
and brought from greater distance for road construction/s. Besides,
pointed a Chief Secretary, huge escalation in the construction cost is
also deterring contractors from taking up road construction works in the
worst affected districts. So moved are the Home Ministry officials (of
all levels) that they veritably agreed with the states’ Chief
Secretaries that Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde should
forthwith speak with Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natrajan that
she give separate category of exemption (specially created for the
purpose) be created for permitting mining of stones from forest land for
road construction/s in all the districts of the LED Districts mentioned
above. Accordingly, Home Ministry Officers along with above directly
affected Chief Secretaries are all set to meet Shinde with their
‘request’. The latter in turn himself is now all prepared to appeal to
Natrajan to ‘relax’ rules so that the LEA Districts in the country
forthwith are inter-connected with the rest of the country including
their own respective states in which at present they are isolated being
pushed into a corner.