New Delhi: The government has approved deployment of six new MI-17 variant helicopters and also enhanced the strength of CRPF troops to 76,000 for conducting anti-Naxal operations in Maoist hotbeds of the country.

"Letter of Intent was issued on September 6 (this year) for hiring of six MI-17 or equivalent helicopters on wet lease for anti-Naxal operations," Home Minister P Chidambaram told reporters here.

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These additional air-combatants will be fully armoured and will be deployed to assist in the deployment, reinforcement and casualty evacuation of troops of the CRPF, ITBP, BSF and state police personnel involved in counter- Maoist operations. At present, a total of nine helicopters are deployed for similar duties in the Naxal operations grid.

These include four MI-17 choppers of the IAF in Chhattisgarh, two each at Raipur and Jagdalpur, while out of the five `Dhruv` Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) of the BSF, three are placed at Raipur and two at Ranchi in Jharkhand.

Chidambaram also announced that the current strength of the CRPF is being enhanced from 71 battalions to 76.

"A decision has been taken to deploy five newly raised CRPF battalions in Left Wing Extremism affected states after completion of their counter-insurgency operations training. "With this, the number of battalions deployed for anti-Naxal operations would rise to 76," he said.

Apart from the CRPF, the Border Security Force has deployed 10 battalions and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) has deployed five battalions for similar tasks. Every single battalion of these forces has about 1,000 personnel.

PTI