At Centre’s LWE Review Meet, Odisha CM Stresses on Better Infrastructure in Maoist-Affected Areas

New Delhi: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today urged the Centre to improve infrastructure in the Maoist-hit areas.

The Odisha CM made several important suggestions at the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) review meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Sunday.

Naveen urged the Centre to consider the following proposals to tackle Maoist menace.

Four laning of NH-326 from Jeypore to Motu via Malkangiri – This will provide a parallel road for traffic from eastern India, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand states to the south especially Bengaluru and Hyderabad. This corridor in addition to reducing the traveling time substantially will also provide huge economic impetus to this region.

The LWE-affected districts are not part of the Railways network. The Railway Ministry and Odisha Government are already constructing two-legs from Jeypore to Nabarangpur and Jeypore to Malkangiri through cost sharing. The missing part between Malkangiri to Bhadrachalam of length 153 KM and Nabarangpur to Junagarh of length 118 KM can provide a very viable alternative path to the trunk routes of the railway. This will have a huge impact on economic growth of these areas.

Providing mobile connectivity to areas of southern and western Odisha. There are 6278 villages in Odisha without any mobile access or connectivity, the largest number in the country.

The CM thanked the Union Home Ministry for sanctioning 488 number of mobile towers for Odisha recently. But to provide coverage to other uncovered villages, an estimated 2000 more mobile base stations will be required.

It is also pertinent that most interiors depend on mobile connectivity and mobile internet for banking, education and delivery of all government services. Today, the basic need, therefore, is of 4G mobile base stations at all places. It is therefore required to upgrade the 2G base stations created earlier.

“We have not been successful in creating banking facilities in these areas. State government will provide land, building etc. for setting up bank branches free of cost. I would urge the Union Government to take expeditious steps to set up banks within a specific time frame of one year or so,” the CM said.

MHA should do a study on how many children from these LWE-affected areas across the country are successful in national level exams like NEET, IIT JEE etc., he urged.