Tripura demands for more concentration on border management 

Agartala, Sep 15 : Tripura has urged the Centre to strengthen border security as well as deploy some more Central paramilitary forces to ensure peace and speed up the development of the state. 

Following yesterday's statement of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram at the DGPs and IGPs conference in New Delhi, the Tripura government has expressed satisfaction over the Centre's understanding about Northeast. 

State Forest and Rural Development Minster Jitendra Choudhury said Mr Chidambaram's statement made it clear that security situation had improved perceptibly in Tripura, where insurgency was contained successfully and the state had become a model for the country. 

Mr Choudhury, however, underlined that still Tripura and few other NE states were prone to insurgency due to an extensive international border, safe sanctuaries in the neighbouring countries and easy availability of sophisticated arms in South-East Asia.

Mr Choudhury demanded to increase BSF strength as well as internal security in Tripura, besides an effective strategy for intelligence sharing and operational coordination among the police forces across Northeast.  

Reacting to Mr Chidambaram's reference to leakage of development funds in the region, which are often siphoned off by the militants, Mr Choudhury opined that large-scale diversion of development funds to the militants gives them easy access to critical resources, which helps them recruit new cadres as well as procure arms. The Centre should play a pro-active role in coordination with the state governments, he advocated.