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New Delhi, March 4: The Centre has cleared the decks for a new surrender policy for Maoists that promises to increase the incentive from a mere Rs 20,000 to over Rs 2.5 lakh.
According to the policy that was deliberated at the conference of DGPs and IGs of Naxalite-affected states today, the Centre would directly fund the incentives now that such provisions had been made in Budget 2013.
The previous policy rewarded a lump sum of Rs 20,000 if any Maoist, junior or senior, surrendered with weapons and Rs 10,000 if the surrender was without weapons.
“Now we can give Rs 2.5 lakh to a senior Maoist, usually of senior commander rank, and Rs 1.5 lakh for a junior leader but weapons will be paid for separately,” said a source. Another attractive component of the policy was a stipend of Rs 3,000 per month for three years for any surrendered Maoist.
Incentives have been hiked in community policing also. Now, Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh will be spent per project with the funds coming from secu-rity related expenditure scheme (SRE) of the ministry of home affairs.
The SRE scheme for 82 districts, including 71 Naxalite-affected districts, hovers around Rs 250 crore but is expected to swell in the coming fiscal. According to sources, close to Rs 700 crore will be spent for Naxalite management in the northeast and Jammu and Kashmir.
“It was basically a review of progress on various fronts today,” explained Chhattisgarh DGP Ram Nivas.
Besides the positives on the surrender policy, there were negatives too, that cropped up during the meeting.
While Bihar was an area of worry, Jharkhand, for a change, was not.
“There is a worry over Bihar’s inaction,” said a senior official who attended the meeting. Bihar police had lost six men recently in Gaya to Maoists but there were few operations being pursued, he said, adding that paramilitary companies were, therefore, “lying idle”.
But operations in Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh came in for praise.
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