Chhattisgarh government will raise its own state industrial security force (SISF) to speed up infrastructure development works and provide cover to the industries in the insurgency-hit pockets.
“Under the proposal that is under consideration, the state government will raise a battalion of state industrial security force comprising about 1000 jawans,” a top official in state’s home department told Business Standard. The force will be solely reserved for industrial security, he added.
The company or the agency engineering any work in the restive areas would send a requisition to the state government that would provide personnel subject to availability. In return, the government would charge fee from the company, the official said.
Explaining about the role of SISF personnel, the official said jawans were required to provide cover to the contractor and his men executing projects like roads, bridge, hospital and school buildings in the Naxalite-infested pockets of Chhattisgarh. The lack of such arrangement had stranded the construction works in the red zone.
The SISF jawans would also man the big dams and other centres of strategic importance. Besides the state government departments involved in infrastructure development projects, private companies could also avail the service of SISF.
A senior official in the state police headquarters here hinted that the force could be used to speed up the work in Rowghat in Naxal-infested Bastar region where the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) had allotted iron ore mines.
The steel maker had been allotted mines in over 883.22 hectares of land in the Rowghat area that had an estimated iron ore reserve of 511 Million Tonnes. Two years have nearly passed after getting the necessary clearances, the work in the project site could not be started following threat from the Naxalites.
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In all, about 28,000 trees had to be cut down in the area while the rebels had warned not a single labour would be allowed in. “Since it is hard to get labourers, the government is planning to use machines to cut down the trees,” Principal Secretary (Forests) Narayan Singh said. The state government had also planned to deploy the SISF in the area to facilitate the construction works that include building roads, laying railway lines and others. The Rowghat mines would feed SAIL’s flagship entity Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) here.
Amid fast depleting iron ore reserves in the captive mines of Dalli-Rajhara, the fate BSP hangs on Rowghat mines. At present, the total iron ore reserves left with Dalli-Rajhara mines is around 50 million tonnes, which the company officials claimed would not last for more than five years.