Standing at a COBRA Operations Base in Bastar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, 8 November 2026 laid out a twin-track scoreboard — security operations against Naxalism running in parallel with a development surge designed to hollow out the insurgency's social base. The numbers he cited were striking: more than 15,000 kilometres of roads, over 9,500 mobile towers, nearly 175 Eklavya residential schools, and roughly 50 ITIs — all built or installed in Left-Wing Extremism-affected regions.

What Modi Said at the COBRA Base

Speaking at the COBRA Operations Base — home to the CRPF's elite jungle-warfare unit — the Prime Minister was explicit about the dual mandate. 'Jab humne naxalvad ke khilaf ladai shuru ki, to iske saath hi naxal prabhavit ilakon ke vikas ke liye vishesh abhiyan bhi chalaye' ('When we launched the fight against Naxalism, we simultaneously ran special campaigns for the development of Naxal-affected areas'), he said, as quoted in the post by the Chief Minister's Office of Chhattisgarh.

He singled out four delivery lines: road connectivity, mobile coverage, tribal schooling through Eklavya Model Residential Schools, and vocational skilling through ITIs. Each one maps directly onto the recognised drivers of LWE influence — isolation, information blackout, educational exclusion, and unemployment.

COBRA, Bastar, and the Security Backdrop

Bastar, the sprawling forested division in southern Chhattisgarh, has been the heartland of India's Naxalite insurgency for decades. The COBRA battalion — Commando Battalion for Resolute Action — is the CRPF's dedicated jungle-warfare force, purpose-built for precisely this terrain. A sitting Prime Minister addressing troops at a COBRA operations base is a pointed signal: Bastar is a frontline, and the government is visibly on it.

Chhattisgarh has long been one of the states hardest hit by Left-Wing Extremism, and Bastar's districts have repeatedly been epicentres of ambushes and counter-operations. The state's tribal population — the community Modi specifically invoked with his mention of Eklavya schools and ITIs — has been caught between insurgent networks and state forces for generations.

Roads and Towers as Counter-Insurgency Tools

The 15,000-km road push in LWE areas is not merely infrastructure — it is state presence made physical. Dedicated road programmes for LWE districts have been sanctioned since the mid-2010s, rooted in the logic that insurgents thrive in ungoverned spaces and that connectivity collapses those spaces. The same rationale drives the 9,500-mobile-tower programme: communication blackouts in deep forest zones have historically protected Naxal movement and coordination.

The Integrated Action Plan, launched in 2010 to address development deficits alongside security, established the policy template Modi was drawing from. What changed post-2014 was scale and speed — road sanctions, telecom rollouts, and school expansions all accelerated significantly in this period.

Eklavya Schools and ITIs: Betting on the Next Generation

Nearly 175 Eklavya Model Residential Schools in LWE-affected zones represent a generational wager. The scheme — originally launched in 1997–98 — provides quality residential education to Scheduled Tribe children in remote areas. Its expansion into Naxal-hit districts is deliberate: educated, employed Adivasi youth are both less vulnerable to recruitment and more likely to become stakeholders in the constitutional order.

The roughly 50 ITIs Modi mentioned complement that logic by plugging the employment gap — skilling tribal youth for formal-sector work rather than leaving them in a labour market where extremist networks can offer an alternative income. Together, the schools and ITIs form the softer layer of a hard-nosed counter-insurgency architecture.

Bastar's forests have been a theatre of conflict for four decades. The Prime Minister's visit to the COBRA base — and the numbers he placed on the table — signal that New Delhi's bet is on making those forests ungovernable for insurgency, one road, one tower, and one school at a time.