The Odisha Government on Thursday urged the Centre to strengthen infrastructure development in the Maoist-prone districts in the State to counter the leftwing Extremism (lWE) menace.
The issue was discussed at a videoconferencing at the State Secretariat here in which the Union Cabinet Secretary interacted with the senior State Government officials, including Home Secretary Asit Tripathy, DGP KB Singh and senior Intelligence officials.
“The thrust of the discussion was on developmental and security aspects in the lWE areas. We demanded increase in the bandwidth of 257 existing mobile towers from 512 KBPS to 1 MBPS. Besides, we also requested the Cabinet Secretary for approval of the proposal submitted to the Centre for setting up of 518 new mobile towers in the lWE areas,” he added.
He said since last 18 months, 12 bank branches and 14 ATM counters have been opened in the Maoist-hit Koraput and Malkangiri districts.
“Banking penetration in the lWE areas is very less. Since about 70 per cent of the population in the lWE areas is deprived of banking facilities, we requested the Cabinet Secretary to take necessary steps to set up ATMs, micro ATMs and Banking Correspondents,” said the Home Secretary.
The Union Cabinet Secretary was also urged to expedite the Malkangiri-Jeypore-Nabarangpur rail project. Tripathy also registered the State’s concern over the inordinate delay in the Central sanction for the Gurupriya bridge construction in the cutoff areas in Chitrakonda block in Malkangiri district.
Out of a total estimated cost of Rs 142 crore for the bridge, the Centre till date has sanctioned Rs 45 crore.
DGP KB Singh said a talk would be conducted between the Odisha and Andhra Pradesh police to launch joint operations against the Maoists very soon.