Out of 15 districts, LWE restricted to just 5 in Odisha: Chief Secretary

Chief Secretary Asit Kumar Tripathy on Thursday said that Left Wing Extremism (LWE) is now restricted to just five districts out of 15 in Odisha.

Tripathy's statement came after a state-level preparatory meeting, ahead of the national-level review meeting, which will be chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on August 26.

"On the security aspect, we have got huge success in curbing left-wing extremism. Out of around 15 districts earlier, naxal menace is now limited to five districts. We have also worked for the future course of action and final work strategy for weeding out naxals from Odisha, which will be presented in the upcoming meeting chaired by the Union Home Minister in Delhi," Tripathy said.

"Now our focus is on the expeditious implementation of development programs in the areas, as we have made roads in Malkangiri and Koraput, need to be done in Kandhamal, Rayagada and Kalahandi, Out of 50,000 villages in Odisha, 8,000 don't have mobile telephone network and out of these around 6,000 are LWE affected. The issue related to low banking penetration will be raised in the meeting," he added.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Minister of State Home, Divya Shankar Mishra, Chief Secretary and DGP will be a part of the state delegation to attend the meeting in New Delhi.