UTTARADIT : About 3,500 policemen will be deployed to secure the cabinet meeting in Uttaradit province tomorrow and Monday.
The cabinet will receive several budgetary requests from the province and its vicinities during the meeting.
Pol Maj Gen Pichet Watanalak, chief of Uttaradit police, said protection personnel would include bomb experts, police with sniffer dogs, aviation police, six companies of riot police, and officers with two armoured vehicles.
Pol Maj Gen Pichet said military police, paramotor fliers, rescue workers, nurses, fire fighters and security volunteers will assist in security operations when the delegation of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra will visit the royally initiated Huay Ree reservoir in tambon Jarim of Tha Pla district and the Bueng Chor reservoir in Phichai district.
Uttaradit police will also deploy 43 escort vehicles to protect the motorcades of 36 cabinet ministers in Uttaradit. The cabinet meeting is set at ICIT Building of Uttaradit Rajabhat University. The university was told to remove all dogs and cats from the meeting area.
Uttaradit governor Chalermchai Fuangkhon said his province would seek about 130 million baht from the cabinet to pay for its development projects. They include a 86.9-million-baht project to improve local transport networks, a project to upgrade the Phudu border crossing, a project to renovate roads in Muang Uttaradit and Laplae districts, a 9.9-million-baht project to protect the heart of Uttaradit from flooding, and a 3-million-baht project to improve the services of Phichai Hospital.
Uttaradit also has two joint projects with nearby provinces to improve local educational services and facilities to support border trade through the Phudu border crossing with Laos and respond to the formation of the Asean Economic Community (AEC) in 2015.
For the development of Tak province, the Interior Ministry will propose the cabinet to endorse a new regulation to develop Mae Sot district into a special economic zone. The regulation will support local administration organisations in developing infrastructure, public utilities and environmental conditions that will help facilitate the expansion of border trade with Myanmar and the formation of the AEC.
Tak authorities will also propose the expansion of the 84-kilometre Tak-Mae Sot Highway and a railway track project from Tak to Mae Sot.
Before the cabinet meeting in Uttaradit, Ms Yingluck will visit Mae Sot district of Tak today and tomorrow to inspect these projects.
Authorities of Phetchabun province will propose several projects including the development of more water sources for agriculture, vocational training, and the improvement of local people's quality of life. They will also propose a feasibility study on a railway extension from Lop Buri's Lam Narai district via Phetchabun to Loei, Nong Bua Lam Phu and Udon Thani provinces.