Union Home Secretary lC Goyal on Friday reviewed the crucial roads and bridges in different Maoist-affected areas in various States and directed the departments to take all possible steps to finish the works of roads and critical 15 bridges within specified timelines.Chief Secretaries and other Central Ministers were also present in the meeting.
Out of the critical 15 bridges in the Maoist-affected areas, five are in Odisha and four in Jhakhand. Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh have two bridges each, while one each is in Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.“lC Goyal reviewed the status of 15 critical bridges in the left Wing Extremism (lWE) affected States in a meeting held here today with the Chief Secretaries of the State Governments and the Senior Officers of the concerned Union Ministries. During the meeting, pending works under the Road Requirement Plan Phase-I (RRP-1) & the issues relating to the proposed RRP-2 were also discussed. Goyal asked them to take all possible steps to speed up the works within specific timelines.
“The Centre is committed to address the lWE problem by focusing on four-pronged strategy involving security related measures, developmental efforts, ensuring of rights and entitlements of forest dwellers and management of public perception,” said MHA in a statement.
Goyal asked the representatives to speed up the completion of works while removing the bottlenecks as these 15 bridges are very important from the security as well as development angles.