Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik attended a meeting on Left Wing Extremism (LWE) in the country, which was chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi. Patnaik requested the Union Government to consider the following proposals:

The LWE-affected districts are not part of the Railways Network. The RAILWAY Ministry and Odisha Government are already constructing two-legs from Jeypore to Nabarangpur and Jeypore to Malkangiri through cost sharing.

The missing part between Malkangiri to Bhadrachalam of length 153 KM and Nabarangpur to Junagarh of length 118 km can provide a very viable alternative path to the trunk routes of the railway. This will have a huge impact on economic Growth of these areas.