Guns boom

New Delhi, July 20: The road to anti-Maoists strategy seems to have gone a bit off-track in Odisha and Jharkhand.

The two states have made negligible progress in building roads in districts affected by Naxal activities, a review done by the ministry of road transport and highways has revealed on Wednesday.

In Odisha, only 93km of the total 614km road approved for construction in the state in 2009 has been completed. The situation in Jharkhand is even worse. Jharkhand has built only 35km of the 753km of road approved for construction in 2009.

With worsening law and order condition, the ministry has been forced to take a re-look at these projects. The ministry had slotted road projects in three categories. In the first category, it had included those stretches which were largely peaceful. The second category had areas where contractors needed police protection. And the third category, considered dangerous, had areas where the ministry failed to get bidders.

Most of the category III projects are in Chhattisgarh. In that state, a total of 1166km are under Maoist control. Of this, only 51km of road has been constructed.

Odisha has 291km under this category but not an inch of work has been done in these areas. With spurt in Maoist activities, category II projects have also been stalled. Contractors are being driven away and their equipment burnt. Because of this, no new bidders are coming forward.

“We will have to carry out a review of the security situation and redo the categorisation of roads,” said minister C.P. Joshi. The biggest example is Jharkhand where 753km of road had been put under category II but only 35km has been constructed.

The Jharkhand government has said that the law and order situation had worsened and even with the help of security personnel the contractors were not able to execute the project.

The worst-affected districts are Gadchiroli in Maharashtra and Malkangiri in Odisha. Since construction activities in these districts have come to a standstill. In view of this, the government has decided that they should not bother to construct bituminous roads. “I have asked the state governments to rope in the villages and break the projects into smaller ones so that even a local contractor can take over the work,” Joshi said.

In areas where Naxal activities are at its peak, the ministry has advised the state government to avoid building bituminous road and instead opt for a fair weather road.

“We have told them to explore this option. But they cannot use this as an excuse to compromise on quality,” Joshi added. The road transport and highways ministry had initiated a special project in 2009 – road requirement plan for areas affected by Left-wing extremism.

In all, 4363km of state roads and 1202km of national highway was approved under the project. The state roads are mostly small stretches connecting the district headquarters with village panchayats or with nearest towns.

So far, 1,811km of state roads has been constructed. Last year the government had managed to construct 1084 Km. Now, the government hopes to construct 1,200km road in these Maoist strongholds.