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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | In Bastar, CRPF launches a soft offensive to win over villagers-Suvojit Bagchi

In Bastar, CRPF launches a soft offensive to win over villagers-Suvojit Bagchi

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published Published on Apr 3, 2013   modified Modified on Apr 3, 2013
-The Hindu

 

It joins hands with AIIMS to offer health services to villagers

Raipur: Maoists as well as security forces have hit upon new strategies to gain an upper hand in the ongoing conflict.

The latest one - to check the influence of rebels - has come from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). It is not at all a military manoeuvre, but an offer of medical assistance to villagers in the Maoist-controlled areas of south Chhattisgarh.

The CRPF's Chhattisgarh Operations Sector and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) have launched a "telemedicine facility for more than 100 locations."

The initiative will cover personnel posted in remote areas and "hundreds of villages located near the camps," says a CRPF communiqué.

Twenty thousand CRPF personnel are stationed in seven districts of south Chhattisgarh, where Maoists run eight divisions with several area committees and at least 10 companies of People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA).

There are five more divisions bordering other States, and it makes this patch - 20,000 sq km - the strongest Maoist base in India. And in this area are sited 80-90 CRPF camps.

These camps are located in the remotest areas, hundreds of miles away from the district headquarters. Reaching these areas is difficult mainly because of lack of motorable roads and a geographically hostile terrain.

Recently, the residents of Chintagufa in Sukma told The Hindu that the doctors "appear seven to eight days a month" in the health centre, which is 100 yards away from a massive CRPF unit.

The question is why cannot a health centre, close to a paramilitary camp, be made functional?

The answer is the medical assistance programme. "A panel of specialist doctors of the AIIMS shall hold teleconferencing twice a week with the CRPF locations," says the communiqué.

The conferencing shall be done on Skype or on the phone wherever these are available, and through digital satellite phone terminals where neither phone nor the Internet works.

The CRPF will inform the villagers of the place designated for teleconferencing with doctors. On the basis of medical advice, the CRPF paramedics will hand out medicines to the villagers from their stock and shift "...the patients [to a proper hospital], if required."

Furthermore, the doctors will visit the camps, initially in accessible areas, and "soon the remote locations."

Zulfiquar Hasan, IG (Operations) of the CRPF, Chhattisgarh, told The Hindu that doctors would visit the camps and the "interior areas of Bastar where there is need for medical support."

"We will start in a small way and spread the medical camps in phases. In case of an emergency, the villagers can approach the local CRPF camp, which will arrange for medical advice through a 24/7 health line," Mr. Hasan said.

When he was Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, the late Rajashekhar Reddy severely dented the influence of Maoists through a host of welfare measures, especially mobile health units.

Their impact on the Naxal movement has been discussed elaborately in the Maoist party's resolution and at the 2007 congress. The party conceded that it could not counter the welfare schemes "politically" and it was a "serious mistake."

Will the rebels repeat the "mistake" by allowing the CRPF to penetrate villages with welfare projects?

Inaugurating the project on Tuesday, CRPF Director-General Pranay Sahay said he was "definite" about the villagers visiting the camps.

"Shops will come up, the roads will be functional, and with overall development, peace-loving people will visit our camps."

In the recent past, every voluntary medical organisation was pulled up for allegedly treating rebels alongside civilians in the Maoist-held areas.

How can the CRPF be sure that it is treating only the civilians?

"No discrimination [between a Maoist and a civilian] will be made as far as treatment is concerned," Mr. Sahay asserted.

Nitin Nagarkar, Director of AIIMS, Raipur, nodded in agreement.

The force will inform villagers of place designated for teleconferencing

CRPF chief says he is "definite" about villagers visiting camps


The Hindu, 3 April, 2013, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/in-bastar-crpf-launches-a-soft-offensive-to-win-over-villagers/article4575220.ece


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