Gadchiroli NGO saves children from Maoists

For nearly a decade now, Maoists in the remotest parts of Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra have been recruiting teenagers for their operations on a massive scale.

In a region stricken by acute poverty, such recruitments are not difficult because teenagers are tempted by money, promise of a livelihood and brainwashed into following the Maoist ideology.

It is in such an environment that, for the last 10 years, Kamlesh Ukhe’s Renuka Charitable Trust has been working towards saving youngsters from joining the Maoists. While some children get the consent of their parents to join Maoists as this brings in money, in the case of some others, the parents approach NGOs working in those areas.

In order to save the children from joining the Maoists, Ukhe and his volunteers shift them to the government-run Balgrams in towns under the district. After this, their upkeep and education is looked after by the trust. They are also provided with vocational training to help them get a livelihood.

Ukhe’s organisation has rescued 10 such children so far with the oldest of them being ready to start college this year. Ukhe was in Pune recently to receive the Punyasholk Ahilyadevi Holkar award instituted by the Maharashtra government from chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.

“The only way we can root out this problem is to eradicate the poverty that is widespread in those areas. The government has many schemes for poverty alleviation, but they do not reach the remotest parts of the district. The need of the hour is to make the government machinery strong enough to reach them,” he said.