Purulia, Dec. 25: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today asked the administration of backward districts, including Purulia, to visit villagers door to door, enquire about their needs and undertake development projects accordingly.

“Go and visit the poor villagers of Purulia and find out their problems. This is the most backward district and not properly developed,” Bhattacharjee said, addressing a gathering of the CPM’s peasant wing at Para, 220 km from Calcutta, this afternoon.

The government has identified about 4,000 poorest-of-the-poor villages, of which the highest ? 996 ? are located in Purulia. Forty per cent of the district’s 25 lakh people live below the poverty line.

The chief minister asked the district sabhadhipati, Mithu Singh Sardar, to personally visit the villages and launch a campaign to make women aware about self-help groups. “Find out women in the villages who want to come out of the shadow of their menfolk and become self-reliant. There are several schemes related to self-help groups. Make the women aware about them.”

Bhattacharjee said various areas of Bengal had made progress in agriculture. “But in Purulia, unfortunately, there has not been much development owing to poor irrigation facilities.”

He asked the district authorities to conserve rainwater in dams and reservoirs for irrigating drought-prone Purulia, which yields a single crop of paddy annually. Rs 45 crore from the Rashtriya Shram Vikas Yojna will be spent to build reservoirs for rainwater harvesting, he said. This will also create employment opportunities.

“Once the villagers of Purulia make arrangements to store rainwater, they can try multi-crop agriculture. Alternative crops like vegetables can be cultivated,” the chief minister added.

Bhattacharjee said Purulia was crying for development on several fronts.

“Children (in Purulia) do not get education. Many villages are inaccessible because of lack of proper roads and there is no electricity in many parts of the district,” said.

Referring to the Maoist activity in Purulia, Bhattacharjee said: “There are no Naxalites now in Naxalbari. The Naxalites are all hiding in Jharkhand. From there, they are coming to Bengal to kill people and policemen. I want to make it clear that such activities will not be tolerated in Bengal. We will not tolerate the politics of murder and violence.”

Security for Bhattacharjee’s visit was beefed up after police detected a network of wires yesterday on the chief minister’s route near Raghunathpur. However, police said it was a false alarm.