For nearly two decades, India’s campaign against Left-wing extremism was not a simple police operation. It was a vast security-and-governance challenge spread across some of the country’s most remote forests.
The security aspect of it entailed the setting up and use of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) battalions, other specialised units, fortified police stations, jungle camps, communications networks, new roads, intelligence centres and logistics chains—all of it handled by thousands of personnel.
Now that the Union government has declared that it effectively reached its target of ridding the country of Left-wing extremism by March 31 this year, a less-examined question has emerged: what happens to this enormous apparatus after the conflict that justified its existence ends?
The answer is not a straightforward “pack up and leave”. It’s a mix of moves involving transition from counter-insurgency to permanent policing, intelligence and civilian administration, with some assets withdrawn, some repurposed and some retained as insurance against a possible revival of the menace.
Here are answers to a few questions that this massive shift raises.
What was the size of the machine?
There is no single data point compiled by the government for the total anti-Maoist operations expenditure. The cost cannot simply be calculated by adding the budgets of the CAPF units deployed in Bastar or Jharkhand, because those forces also perform other national security functions, Union home ministry officials clarified. Similarly, state police salaries, roads, telecommunications, helicopters, intelligence, fortified stations and development expenditure are drawn under various budget heads.
The logistics behind each remote camp was itself a small supply chain: personnel, food, drinking water, generators, fuel, medical supplies, tents or prefabricated structures, ammunition, protective equipment, communications equipment and vehicles. Helicopters provided another layer of mobility, casualty evacuation and resupply.
Are numbers available to indicate the scale?
Yes, a few official numbers have been shared in recent months. By December 2025, the government had reported 361 security camps, 586 fortified police stations more than 12,000 km of new roads laid and more than 8,500 mobile towers erected in the swath formerly marked as the ‘Red Corridor’. A Parliament reply revealed 377 camps had been established by the security forces in the affected states since 2019.
The CAPF has formed 67 general-duty battalions to address Maoist extremism and 10 elite Commando Battalions for Resolute Action or CoBRA units. Seven of the CoBRA units are stationed in Chhattisgarh, two in Jharkhand and one in Odisha. The organisation also has signal battalions, communications infrastructure, workshops, hospitals, training establishments and administrative formations.
So what happens to the CAPF units now?
The withdrawal is likely to be gradual, especially as the government has repeatedly emphasised avoiding a security vacuum. The Union home ministry’s policy explicitly envisages CAPF deployment to strengthen state police forces and create permanently larger capacities.
A battalion that leaves Bastar can also be moved to another internal security theatre, a border area, or be called upon for election duty, disaster response or other national requirements.
What happens to CoBRA, the elite force?
The CoBRA battalions—that have their own jungle-warfare training, intelligence cells, communications infrastructure and specialised state units—are unlikely to be dismantled overnight. They are expensive capabilities that took years to develop. Some are likely to be retained as reserves against a possible threat of armed extremism. A few might be shifted to other internal security theatres—two CoBRA battalions are already deployed in Manipur.
The likely model, therefore, is a thinning of the footprint rather than abandonment of territory, fewer large jungle deployments, fewer forward positions, greater reliance on state police and permanent stations, and a smaller but highly-capable central reserve.
What happens to special security camps built?
These will have a second life. A counter-insurgency camp is a physical symbol of State presence. Once its military function declines, it can become a police station, administrative centre, health facility, school, telecom node or multi-service government centre, officials said.
They claim this transition has already begun in Bastar, adding that in May 2026, an initiative was announced to convert former security camps into one-stop public-service centres, bringing government schemes closer to tribal communities.
These can ultimately prove more consequential. The central problem that allowed Maoists to establish influence was absent or apathetic state administrations. Experts have pointed out for long that the post-Maoist strategy has to replace the security footprint with a much larger governance footprint.
The wartime architecture of central security forces working with state police, intelligence agencies, district forces and specialised units will increasingly become a conventional policing chain. Joint command centres and intelligence-sharing mechanisms may remain, but their mission will change from hunting an insurgent army to preventing organised violence, arms trafficking and attempts at ideological or armed reconstitution.
What happens to the communications network?
More than 9,000 telecom towers had been commissioned for the Red Corridor by December 2025, while roads and financial infrastructure were expanded simultaneously. The communications network that once supported security operations can become ordinary civilian infrastructure: for mobile connectivity, emergency response, banking, policing, education and healthcare.
Specialised command-and-control systems are different. Some may be absorbed into state police and intelligence structures; others could be mothballed or redeployed. The principle will be to preserve institutional memory without maintaining the full wartime footprint.
How has Naxal hierarchy changed?
The Maoist hierarchy has effectively collapsed as an operational structure. The government stated not long ago that the CPI (Maoist)’s central leadership structure has been broken, with members of its Central Committee and Politburo arrested, killed or surrendered.
On September 17, a special task force of West Bengal police arrested Asim Mandal, alias Akash, allegedly a central committee member and secretary of the CPI (Maoist) West Bengal state committee.
What happens to the surrendered Maoists?
Surrender does not automatically mean that a former Maoist disappears from the security system. Rehabilitation and criminal justice are separate tracks. A surrendered cadre may receive financial assistance, vocational training and a stipend, while pending criminal cases continue through the legal system.
The current rehabilitation framework provides, according to the government, an immediate grant of ₹5 lakh for higher-ranking cadres and ₹2.5 lakh for others, plus ₹10,000 a month for 36 months, along with incentives for surrendering weapons. Between 2024 and March 2026, 3,927 cadres surrendered, including 2,337 in 2025 alone.
Therefore, monitoring changes rather than ending. Authorities will need to distinguish between genuine reintegration and individuals who might attempt to rebuild underground networks. That means continued verification, local intelligence, police records and attention to unresolved criminal cases.
The long-term objective should be to avoid creating a permanent population of people treated as suspects simply because of their past. Successful demobilisation requires eventually replacing surveillance with normal citizenship—while retaining lawful monitoring where criminal or security concerns remain.
What happens to the weapons?
This is another area where the post-war transition is governed by rules rather than discretion. Seized or surrendered weapons are not simply distributed among police personnel or thrown away. Under the rules, firearms and ammunition that are confiscated, seized, recovered or surrendered are formally taken on charge, documented and transferred to the appropriate central or state firearms bureau.
Weapons are examined and classified as serviceable, unserviceable or beyond economical repair. Serviceable weapons can, subject to the rules and competent-court orders, enter authorised channels and weapons designated for destruction go through the prescribed destruction process.
For Maoists’ weapons, there is also an investigative dimension. A recovered rifle may be evidence in a murder, ambush or arms-trafficking case. Its serial number, ballistic characteristics and forensic history can matter years after the insurgency has ended.
The larger stockpile accumulated through decades of encounters and seizures is a mix of evidence, usable weapons, obsolete weapons, locally manufactured firearms, explosives and ammunition. Much of it will ultimately be destroyed or otherwise disposed of under legal procedure.
How will the end-game pan out?
The most important question is not how many tents are packed away or how many trucks leave Bastar. It is whether the State can afford to reduce the security footprint without reducing the footprint. India has already moved from 126 Maoist violence-affected districts in 2014 to zero by March-April 2026, according to the government, while violence has fallen dramatically over the same period.
That achievement creates a paradox. The very success of the security campaign makes the giant apparatus less necessary, but dismantling it too quickly could recreate the vacuum in which insurgency once flourished. The likely future is therefore Red Corridor security becomes ordinary governance.
The final accounting will likely take longer than the war itself. The Red Corridor was never a single programme with a single budget. It was a sprawling national-security enterprise built over years. Its dismantling, consequently, will not look like demobilisation after a conventional war. It will look like a military-security system slowly being absorbed into the permanent machinery of the Indian State.
