Red Corridor to be restructured by Union Government soon

Union Government has decided to reduce the number of Maoist-affected districts by about a fifth.

As per reports, about 20 out of 106 districts described as being Maoist-affected and part of the Red Corridor may soon no longer be part of the list.

Dropping of these districts from the list will result in drying of the financial aid given to the districts. The aid was being provided to the tune of 30 crore rupees annually for various developmental work.

Highlights
• The red corridor expands in 106 districts of 10 states of the country. The ten states are Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
• These districts are described as those affected by Left Wing Extremism (LWE) and constitute the Red Corridor.
• 44 districts of these 106 are said to be the worst affected districts. In total India constitutes of 683 districts.
Features on which districts are termed as LWE includes
• Their violence profile
• Assessment of the kind of logistical and other support that is provided to the Maoist cadres by their sympathizers

In 2006, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh referred to the Naxalites as "the single biggest internal security challenge" for India. He said that the "deprived and alienated sections of the population" forms the backbone of the Maoist movement in India. Later in 2013, the government declared that, 76 districts in the country were affected by "left wing extremism", with another 106 districts in ideological influence.

Project started to culminate LWE and Red Corridor
Union Government has launched an exercise under which the Maoist-affected districts were identified. They were graded on the basis of their violence profile. The Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) has given the go-ahead for an ambitious road project in the 44 worst-affected districts. Under the project about 5412 kilometer road and 126 bridges will be constructed at an expense of 11725 crore rupees.