A high-level meeting was held at the State Secretariat here on Wednesday under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi to discuss the State’s plans to tackle the Maoist menace ahead of the anti-Maoist strategy meeting of the affected States that has been called by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi on May 8.
At the meeting, it was decided to deploy more armed forces, launch special programmes in the districts recently affected by insurgent activities, setting up of high powered mobile towers in the Maoist-infested districts, developing road infrastructure, allotment of security related expenditure, allotment of special funds for upgrading infrastructure, upgrading infrastructure of the BSF headquarters were discussed in detail and it was decided to raise this points in the meeting in New Delhi.
later, speaking to the media Padhi said “We would seek two battalions of additional Central forces and stress on strengthening inter-State coordination, better mobile and road connectivity and infrastructure development in the Maoist-infested areas during the meeting with the Home Minister.’
It might be mentioned here that bad roads and low mobile connectivity are a big hindrance for the security forces in the Maoist hit areas to take the guerillas head on. Among others, Principal Home Secretary Asit Kumar Tripathy, DGP KB Singh, Rural Development
Secretary Bishnupada Sethi and many other top officials were present.