Most dangerous official mission since 1947

Forget Kashmir or the Northeast, this may be the most dangerous mission an Indian government official has undertaken.

For the first time since Independence, scores of state government officials are being sent to collect data and talk to local population in the heart of India’s Maoist-hit territory in Chhattisgarh’s Abujhmad.

The thickly forested region where government presence is sparse and often in name is also overrun by landmines and booby traps, creating a situation former prime minister Manmohan Singh described as India’s gravest internal security threat.

Revenue department officials are now taking cycles and motorbikes down dirt tracks, often ringed by dozens of security personnel, to survey land, record land holdings and create maps.

The exercise is aimed at helping the government quickly build roads and other facilities to push back Maoist rebels, and bring in a wave of development to loosen the insurgents’ hold on local population. “The aerial survey of the region was done in recent years but ground survey is being done for the first time since Independence,” Narayanpur district magistrate TS Sonwani said.

The process began last week and findings of the aerial survey would be ‘corroborated’ during the field survey for deciding ownership and boundaries of a land, he added. Spread over about 4,000 square kilometres, the heavily forested Abujhmad is considered the citadel of Maoist insurgents, who are said to run camps and training facilities in the cover of the inhospitable terrain.

Government presence is not visible for miles, and the last sign of state administration ends a mere 15 kilometres from district headquarters of Narayanpur.