Page 169 - Sanidhya 2025

The CRPF’s Forward Bases

Lifelines Transforming Tribal Healthcare in

Chhattisgarh’s Bastar

For generations, the tribal communities of Chhattisgarh’s
Bastar region lived in a state of medical abandonment.
Nestled in dense forests that were also Maoist
strongholds, villages faced a harrowing reality:No
motorable roads,distant health facilities and

Inaccessible Facilities:Existing PHCs and CHCs
were concentrated in relatively secure semi-urban
areas, rendering them virtually unreachable for
remote tribal hamlets.
preventable deaths.Pregnant women, critically ill Lack of Infrastructure: Basic diagnostic tools,
patients, and injured children faced journeys of 10-15 medicines, and qualified medical personnel were
kilometers or more on foot through treacherous terrain to absent in the interiors. Preventable and treatable
reach the nearest Primary Health Centre (PHC) or diseases became death sentences.
Community Health Centre (CHC). This isolation fueled Maoist Deterrence: Even where facilities nominally
shockingly high mortality rates from treatable conditions existed, Maoists actively discouraged tribals from
like malaria, diarrhea, childbirth complications, and accessing government services and threatened
infections. The establishment of Forward Operating health workers, further deepening the isolation.
Bases (FOBs) by the Central Reserve Police Force
(CRPF) since 2022 has dramatically altered this The FOBs: Catalysts for Healthcare Access
landscape, transforming security outposts into
unexpected engines of healthcare access and socio- As part of a strategic push to dismantle Maoist influence,
economic development. the CRPF established over 40 Forward Operating Bases
(FOBs) in the heart of Bastar’s most affected areas (like
The Healthcare Abyss Before the FOBs Sukma, Bijapur, Bastar, and Gariyaband) over the past
three years . While their primary
The Bastar region, encompassing districts like Sukma,
Bijapur, Dantewada, and Kanker, epitomized healthcare
deprivation. Key challenges included:

Geographic Isolation: Villages were cut off by dense
forests and the deliberate absence of roads – a
tactic used by Maoists to maintain control over these
“no-go” zones .