The Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde recently reviewed left-wing extremism (LWE) with the Chief Secretaries, the Directors General of Police of the nine LWE-affected states and the representatives of the CAPFs. He said the LWE-violence level has been declining since 2010. The number of incidents has declined from 2,213 (with 1,005 resultant deaths) in 2010 to 1,415 incidents (with 415 resultant deaths) in 2012. In the current year (up to August 30, 2013), there has been a 27.48 per cent reduction in number of incidents (with 14.10 per cent reduction in resultant deaths) in comparison to the corresponding period of 2012.

In Manipur, 155 underground cadres {Kuki Revolutionary Front (KRF)-53, Kuki National Liberation Front (KNLF)-50, Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP/Nongdrenkhomba)-44 and Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL)-08} alongwith 134 weapons and ammunition surrendered at the First Manipur Rifles in the district Imphal West on September 9, 2013.

Tripartite meetings involving the representatives of the Government of India, Government of Assam, Joint Action Committee for Autonomous State (JACAS) and the Koch Rajbongshi and Bodo Group were held from September 2-5, 2013, to discuss their demands.

A tripartite meeting was held on September 12 with the representatives of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Progressive), the Government of Assam and the Ministry of Home Affairs. The functioning of suspension of operation (SoO) arrangement and observance of agreed ground rules were reviewed in the meeting and it was agreed to extend the SoO agreement for a further period of three months up to December 31, 2013.

A notification, declaring Tirap, Changlang and Longding Districts of Arunachal Pradesh as ‘Disturbed Area” under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 for a further period of six months with effect from October 1, 2013, was issued on September 27, 2013.

Modernisation of police forces

The Minister said that as against the total allocation of Rs. 1,847 crore under the scheme for modernisation of state police forces for 2013-14, an amount of Rs. 794.59 crore was released to 18 states during the month of September 2013. Under the scheme for “construction/strengthening of fortified police stations” an amount of Rs. 14.30 crore was released to the state governments of Madhya Pradesh ( Rs. 4.70 crore) and Odisha ( Rs. 9.60 crore). During the month, Rs. 7.09 crore were sanctioned to the CAPFs (BSF, CRPF, SSB and IB) for acquisition of 381.04 acres of land and Rs. 0.54 crore to CRPF for construction of office/residential buildings.

On September 23, 2013, an amount of Rs. 36.96 crore was sanctioned to Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) for implementation of plan scheme named ‘training intervention’. Rs. 101.29 crore was released to the Coastal States/UTs for construction work of Coastal Police Stations/Jetties etc. during the month of September 2013.

Under the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network Systems (CCTNS), up to September 2013, contracts for System Integrated (SIs) have been signed in 32 States/UTs. Nearly 12,463 out of a total of 16,735 CCTNS sites have been completed and 9,035 CCTNS sites have been commissioned by BSNL with regard to network connectivity. As part of capacity building under CCTNS, 7.8 lakh training courses have been conducted. Funds to the tune of Rs. 289.78 crore has been utilised out of total released amount of Rs. 493.91 crore.