Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday urged the Center to study how many children from Naxal-affected areas in the country clear the national level examinations. Patnaik made the proposal at a high-level meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah with chief ministers and officials of 10 Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected states in New Delhi.
According to his speech at the meeting, Patnaik said, “MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) should study how many children from these Left Wing Extremism affected areas across the country appear in national level examinations like NEET, IIT, JEE and others. are.” Issued here. “If our system continues to bypass these areas, it will not help the people of Left Wing Extremism affected areas,” he said.
Stating that Naxalism poses a significant internal security challenge to the nation, Patnaik said that even while fighting COVID, Odisha continued its efforts to curb the activities of Left Wing Extremism with substantial success. The Chief Minister also put forward several other proposals, including extension of NH-326 from Jeypore to Motu to four laning from Malkangiri.
“It will provide a parallel road for traffic from eastern India, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand states to the south especially Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Apart from reducing the travel time, this corridor will also provide a huge economic boost to the region. Observing that the Naxal-affected districts are not part of the railway network, Patnaik said the Railways Ministry and the Odisha government are building lines from Jeypore to Nabarangpur and Jeypore to Malkangiri through cost-sharing.
“The missing portion between the length of 153 km from Malkangiri to Bhadrachalam and the length of 118 km from Nabarangpur to Junagadh may provide a very viable alternative route to the trunk routes of the railways. This will have a huge impact on the economic development of these Left Wing Extremism affected areas. Patnaik said there are 6,278 villages in the southern and western regions of the state without any mobile connectivity – the largest number in the country.
He urged the Center to take swift steps to set up banks in these areas, for which the state government would provide land and infrastructure free of cost. The Chief Minister said that 70 per cent of the 30 districts in the state were affected during the peak of Naxalite activities, with barely parts of three districts in Odisha now affected.
“In our experience dealing with left-wing extremism, an important lesson is that access, and in turn economic prosperity, is the biggest anti-left-wing extremism measure we should aim for and do on a large scale,” he said at the meeting. Patnaik said that the Odisha government is committed to continue the proactive security strategy along with sustainable and holistic development of tribal areas to tackle the issue of Naxalism.
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