Centre to spend Rs 11,000 crore on roads in 44 Naxal-affected districts

The Centre will soon begin work on a Rs 11,000 crore project to provide road connectivity to 44 Naxal-affected districts, including Sukma in Chhattisgarh, which had recently witnessed one of the deadliest Maoist attacks.

Five per cent of the total project cost i.e Rs 550 crore will be kept aside for administrative expenses including for deployment of security forces at strategic locations, officials said.

To improve rural road connectivity in the left wing extremism affected districts, the Cabinet had last year approved the centrally-sponsored "Road Connectivity Project for Left Wing Extremism (LWE) Affected Areas" scheme.

The project will be implemented under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in the districts that are critical from a security and communication point of view.

Under the project, there will be construction or upgradation of 5,411 kms of roads and 126 bridges. Work will be taken up at an estimated cost of Rs 11,724.53 crore in the above districts.

The project is likely to be started in the next few weeks and all necessary arrangements have been made for its launch, a top government official said.

Out of these 44 districts, the maximum are in Chattisgarh, where 25 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force were killed by Naxals last month.

Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra are the other states that will be covered under the scheme.