Accessibility and economic prosperity is the biggest anti LWE measure: Odisha CM

Bhubaneswar : Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday said accessibility and in turn economic prosperity is the biggest anti-Left Wing Extremist (LWE) measure to address the issue.
Addressing a high-level meeting of Chief Ministers of 10 Maoist-hit states in New Delhi presided over by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Mr Patnaik said Odisha sustained its efforts to curb LWE activities even during the battle against Covid pandemic and had substantial success.
Mr Patnaik said from 70 per cent of the districts affected during the peak, the Maoist activities are limited to only to certain parts of Malkangiri, Koraput and Nabarangpur district now.
The experience, learnt is that accessibility and economic prosperity is the biggest anti-LWE measure we should aim for and these have to be done in scale, he said and submitted five-point proposals for the consideration of the Union government to combat the Naxal problem.
Mr Patnaik suggested for the four-laning of NH 326 from Jeypore to Motu via Malkangiri up to Bhadrachalam. Th project will provide a parallel road for traffic from eastern India, the two neighbouring states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand to the south especially Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The corridor in addition to reducing the travelling time, substantially will also provide a huge economic impetus to this region.
He said as the LWE-affected districts are not part of the railway network, the Railway Ministry and the Odisha government are already constructing two routes from Jeypore to Nabarangpur and Jeypore to Malkangiri through cost-sharing. However, the missing part between Malkangiri to Bhadrachalam (153 km) and Nabarangpur to Junagarh (118 km) can provide a viable alternative path to the trunk routes of railway, which will have a huge impact on the economic growth of these areas.
The Chief Minister also pleaded for mobile connectivity in 6,278 villages in southern and western Odisha where there is no mobile access or connectivity, the largest n the country. Although the Centre sanctioned 488 mobile towers for Odisha recently, an estimated 2,000 more mobile base stations will be required to provide coverage to other uncovered villages.
As most of the interior areas depend on mobile connectivity and mobile internet for banking, education and delivery of all government services, the need of the hour is 4-G mobile base stations at all places and upgrading of the existing 2-G base stations erected earlier.
The Chief Minister urged the Union government to initiate steps to within a specific time frame of one year to set up banks in the LWE areas in Odisha.
He also urged the Home Ministry to do a study on how many children from these LWE-affected areas across the country are getting into national level exams like NEET, IIT and JEE. If the present systems continue to bypass these areas, it is not going to help the cause of people of LWE affected areas, he said.
The Chief Minister reiterated his commitment to continue with the pro active security strategy combined with sustained and holistic development of tribal areas to address the issue of left wing extremism.