Title - MLAs express anger over railway apathy

BHUBANESWAR: Members in the Assembly on Friday expressed concern over the alleged step-motherly attitude of the railways towards Odisha, months after budgetary provisions meant for certain developmental works in the state were cut down after Mukul Ray succeeded Dinesh Trivedy as the railway minister.Both ruling BJD and opposition Congress agreed to the charges that Odisha does not gets due importance in the Railway Budget. There was even suggestion made in the House for a resolution to condemn the railway's skewed attitude towards the state. The Congress, however, held the BJD government equally responsible for the tardy progress in railway projects. "The state government is also to be blamed for poor progress in railway works because in many cases it has failed to provide land in time. Let there be threadbare discussions on the issue in the House," leader of opposition Bhupinder Singh said. Odisha has all along protested against the railway for continuously allocating meagre money leading to slow progress in completion of ongoing projects. Many new projects have also not been able to take off, adding fuel to the growing public anger against the railway. A Planning Commission report sometime back had observed: "It is most unfortunate that in a poor and backward state like Odisha, development of rail networks has received much less attention of the Central government in the post-independence period." Officials sources said barring three years rail budgets from 1992-93 till 2002-03 continuously gave less than Rs 200 crore. Though the allocations increased marginally, they were nevertheless too little to change the state's poor railway network scenario.

The anti-railway feeling got a fresh lease of life recently following reports that the railway after Mukul Ray took over has cut down proposed expenditure to the tune of over Rs 148 crore on different projects. Those suffered under the new minister included doubling works of Raipur-Titilagarh-Sambalpur line, Jharsuguda-Rengali, Delanga-Puri, Sambalpur-Talcher, beside a bypass line at Sukinda Road and a flyover at Jharsuguda.

The state government ahead of the 2012-13 railway budget had sent a list of high priority projects and requested the Centre to allocate at least Rs 2,345 crore for their early completion. The projects included six major railway lines, doubling works, funds for 12 new lines. This apart, the government had also urged the railway to introduce new trains so that the state could be well connected to country's different destinations. Officials said when the budget was presented the total allocation for projects in Odisha were worth not more than Rs 723 crore. "The railway's attitude towards Odisha is quite unfortunate. It earns huge revenue of over Rs 8,500 crore from the state, but when it comes to allocating funds for developmental works the railways just throws a crumb," said BJD MLA Amar Satapathy.