New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is set to remove around 20 of the 106 Maoist-affected districts that are part of the Red Corridor.


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Notably, this is being done for the first time since 2006.


The Hindu has cited a senior Home Ministry official as saying that the respective states have been informed about the names of the districts and the reasons for being considered to be removed. A response is awaited in this regard.


 


The 106 districts spread across 10 states — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal — are affected by Left Wing Extremism (LWE) and make up the ‘Red Corridor`.


Of these, 44 districts are said to be the worst-affected.


The districts have been examined on parameters like violence profile, an assessment of the kind of logistical and other support provided to armed Maoist cadres by their sympathisers and “overground workers”, and the kind of positive changes brought about by development work that these districts have seen.


 


In the last year, the lowest Maoist violence was recorded in six years. In 2016, though, the number of Maoist-related incidents has increased as compared to those recorded during the same period in 2015.