Bhubaneswar: With the Government of Odisha under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik successfully tackling the Maoist issues with strong hands, five districts of the state are going to get rid of the SRE( Security Related Expenditure) tag. The state government has approved the removal of five districts – Angul ,Boudh , Sambalpur, Deogarh and Nayagarh from the LWE affected SRE districts.
Odisha Govt has approved removal of five districts of Angul ,Boudh , Sambalpur, Deogarh and Nayagarh from LWE affected SRE districts.
This recognises improved security situation in these districts.
Odisha Police is committed to make whole of Odisha LWE free .@CMO_Odisha— DGP, Odisha (@DGPOdisha) July 10, 2020
Odisha has experienced the scourge of Left Wing Extremism for more than three decades. In 2012, 19 districts of the state were declared as SRE districts. Robust security response as well as focused developmental activities in those affected areas have brought about a turnaround in the situation in the State especially in the last few years.
In April 2018, six districts i.e., Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Gajapati and Ganjam were declared as free from Maoist activities and were removed from the Central Government sponsored Security Related Expenditure (SRE) Scheme, a scheme exclusively meant for capacity building in Maoist affected Districts.
Now, the State Government has approved to remove five districts, namely, Angul, Boudh, Sambalpur, Deogarh and Nayagarh from the SRE scheme. In total, eleven districts have so far been assessed to be free of Maoist activities in a span of two years, largely due to the impact of security response and good governance by the State Government.
The progressive fizzling out of the Maoist influence in the state is an indicative of the growing acceptance by the people to the developmental agenda of the State Government led by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and their disenchantment towards the obsolete Maoist ideology.