Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Feb 11: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Wednesday termed the Centre’s demand for Rs 1,450.29crore from the state for deployment of Central police forces in Maoist-affected areas as “unreasonable”, and pleaded that the amount be waived.
“It is the responsibility of both the Union Government and the states to fight Left Wing Extremism in various parts of the country, including Orissa, by pooling together their resources,” Patnaik said in a letter to Union home minister Rajnath Singh. Noting that the Maoist problem has spread to large areas of the country, Patnaik said deployment of central forces was essential to supplement efforts of the state police to counter Left Wing Extremists.
He said that the Orissa government had also recruited, trained and deployed a large number of police personnel for anti-Maoist operations by bearing huge expenditure from the state exchequer, he said.
Patnaik was responding to a letter received from the director general of CRPF December 29, 2014, asking the state to pay Rs 1,450.29crore as deployment charge of CRPF/RAF detachment up to September 30 last year. The Chief Minister said he had requested the former Union home minister, in a letter October 1, 2011, to consider waiving of the charges. In response, the home ministry said in a letter January 16, 2015, that there was no provision for waiving off of thedeployment charges as per existing norms, unless the Centre reconsidered the matter.
