Title - Kishore Deo's call for shifting East Coast Railway headquarters draws BJD fury

BHUBANESWAR: The one-hour symbolic dharna called by the ruling Biju Janata Dal ( BJD) continued on Friday at railway stations across Odisha in protest against a demand by Union Tribal Affairs Minister V Kishore Deo to shift the zonal headquarters of the East Coast Railway (ECoR) from Bhubaneswar to Visakhapatnam. It is likely to go on for the next two days.

Other political parties too have opposed Deo's demand. Congress leader and former railway minister KC Lenka also disapproved the demand, saying that it would lead to widespread unrest in the state as it took long 70 years to get a railway zonal headquarters in Odisha. Activists of the East Coast Banchao Sangharsha Samiti on Thursday organised a demonstration in the heart of the city, set an effigy of the Union minister on fire, and threatened of dire consequences if the UPA had moved the ECoR headquarters out of Bhubaneswar.

The ECoR has three divisions — Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar and Sambalpur. The Bhubaneswar division has emerged as the most profit-making zone in the Indian Railways. For instance, it has achieved record loading performance in August to become the largest freight-loading zone of the railways. Incremental loading of the ECoR is the highest in the Indian Railways, surpassing the loading figure of the South-East Central Railway at 60.98 million tonnes and South Eastern Railway at 55.47 million tonnes of freight till August 2013, ECoR sources said.

Deo's letter to AK Antony-led panel, which is looking into the demand for zonal headquarters of the railways, has sparked off the row. The Union minister, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, has proposed that Visakhapatnam being located on the east coast between Kolkata and Chennai be made the headquarters of the ECoR and the South Eastern Railway headquarters be shifted from Kolkata to Bhubaneswar.

Since Kolkata does not come in the southeastern region, there is no justification of having the SER headquarters there, he said, adding that Kolkata may continue to be the Eastern Railway Zone headquarters.