Left Wing extremism in eastern states could be contained substantially after completion of the Vijayawada-Ranchi road corridor, Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik said today.

"I have asked the centre for construction of this road corridor several times and the state government has been giving much emphasis to it," Patnaik said.

Stating that his government was giving importance to improvement of infrastructure in villages by constructing pucca roads, Patnaik said the economic condition of the people would also improve as a result.

The chief minister listed some of his government's social welfare programmes like the recently launched Mamata scheme for pregnant women, cheap rice at Rs 2 per kg, Madhubabu Pension Yojana and Mo Kudia Yojana to the landless people.

He was speaking at a public meeting at Aska, about 40 km from here after laying foundation stone for the Aska-Bhanjanagar portion of the Jagannath Puri-Berhampur- Phulabani stretch of the 1632-km-long Vijayawarda-Ranchi corridor.

The Orissa portion of the road is 1219-km, which passes through the Maoist-hit tribal-dominated districts.

The road corridor also passed through Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand.