New Delhi: With less than a week left for the Centre’s March 31 deadline to end left-wing extremism, security forces have launched intensive operations in key Maoist-affected areas to track down the remaining armed cadres and force them to surrender.“The plan is to ensure 100 per cent elimination of armed Naxalites by March 31, the deadline announced by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. This will be done either by engaging in encounters or by surrendering. Some major operations are being carried out in these last 5-6 days of the countdown,” a top CAPF commander told PTI.Security forces are still keeping an eye on around 130-150 armed cadres, including two central committee members of the banned CPI (Maoist) and some other divisional-rank workers.The Center is also preparing an “operations and development” blueprint, which is expected to include the withdrawal of about five Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) battalions from these areas and the introduction of several welfare schemes, official sources told PTI.As part of the operation, around three to four CoBRA units of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) are being moved from Chhattisgarh to Jharkhand for a special operation in the Saranda forests of West Singhbhum district, sources said.It is said that Misir Besra alias Bhaskar lives in Jharkhand and Cobra teams are searching for him and his associates.Sources said that in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, teams of CRPF, BSF and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) are also being “redeployed” with the specific objective of engaging armed Maoist cadres in gun battles or forcing their surrender.According to sources, a cross-border operation is also underway involving Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Odisha.According to officials, Rammanna, also known as Ganapathy or Lakshmana Rao, is reportedly in touch with the Telangana Police and may surrender by March 31.Another official said about three battalions of the Border Security Force (BSF), along with a sector office headed by a DIG-rank officer, are expected to withdraw from Koraput district and adjoining areas of Odisha.The sector office may shift to Kandhamal district of the state and three battalions will shift either to border guarding duties or to Manipur, as the situation requires.Some CAPF battalions will also be withdrawn from Chhattisgarh, the official said, an announcement of which is expected to be made on March 31. The state police and Chhattisgarh DRG will take over the CAPF camps.Chhattisgarh Home Minister and Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma announced in Jagdalpur on Wednesday that about 96 percent of the vast geographical area of ​​Bastar is now free from Naxalite influence.CAPFs and state police forces have also been asked to conduct a joint “de-mining” exercise to search for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and bombs hidden in Naxalite violence-hit areas, sources said.In February, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) conducted a fresh review of Naxalite violence-affected areas and informed that the number of Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected districts in the country stands at seven.These seven districts are Bijapur, Narayanpur, Sukma, Kanker and Dantewada in Chhattisgarh, West Singhbhum in Jharkhand and Kandhamal in Odisha.The nine states affected by Left Wing Extremism under different categories are Jharkhand, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana and West Bengal.According to official figures, a total of 76 districts in nine states were vulnerable to Left Wing Extremism during 2005–06.Home Minister Shah has repeatedly said that the threat of left-wing extremism, which was called the biggest internal security challenge for India in 2010, will end by this March.Describing Naxalite violence as a challenge to democracy, he said that till now about 17,000 civilians and security personnel have lost their lives in it.The Naxalite movement in India emerged in 1967 in Naxalbari, a village in West Bengal located at the tri-junction of India, Nepal and Bangladesh.