The State Government is all set to receive another Rs 112 crore from the Union Government for fortification of 70 more police stations in the Maoist-infested zones, assured Officer on Special Duty (OSD) of Union Ministry of Home affairs (MHA) Anil Goswami.
Goswami gave the assurance after holding a review of the progress of the police station fortification programme in Odisha. Under the programme of construction of fortified police stations (PSs), the MHA is funding 80 per cent of Rs 2 crore for each PS and rest 20 per cent is borne by the State Government.
Earlier, Odisha had received Rs 112 crore for fortification of 70 PSs, and the MHA is learnt to have expressed satisfaction over the progress. The program was designed to set up 400 fortified PSs in the Maoist-hit States of the country.
While Goswami will be taking over as MHA Secretary on July 1, he was on a visit to Odisha recently. Home Secretary UN Behera and DGP Prakash Mishra discussed with him about the strategies to combat the Maoist menace.
Goswami said that earlier the Centre had approved fortification of 70 police stations in the State’s leftwing Extremist-infested districts. Now, this extra amount would be made available soon, he assured.
Goswami asked the State Government to give wide publicity to a comprehensive reward policy on the Maoists so that people would take advantage of the benefits by passing information about dreaded ultras. Though the State Government has formulated a reward policy, it has not been publicised properly, experts feel. In fact, the State Government has decided to provide reward amount of Rs 20 lakh, which is the highest in the country.
Information leading to arrest of three top Maoists, Sabyasachi Panda, Modem Balakrishna and Ramakrishna, will fetch Rs 20 lakh. While Andhra Pradesh has provision of rewarding Rs 12 lakh for people facilitating arrest of top Maoist leaders, the maximum amount announced by Chhattisgarh is Rs 7 lakh.
The Odisha police have already identified at least 28 hardcore Maoists whose arrest would fetch reward. While Rs 20 lakh would be given for the arrest of the three top leaders, arrest of 25 others could fetch Rs 3 lakh to Rs 12 lakh, officials said. The amounts fixed by the State Government for reward are Rs 12 lakh for central committee members, Rs 10 lakh for State committee members, Rs 5 lakh for district committee members and Rs 5 lakh andm Rs 3 lakh for divisional committee members.