Title - Naveen asks Railway Minister to restore original budgetary allocation

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today strongly protested the unilateral reduction in the railway budget for Odisha and requested the Union Railway Minister to restore the original budgetary allocation made for the state in 2012-13 budget. In a letter to Railway Minister C P Joshi, the copies of which were released to the press here, the Chief Minister said such reduction in budgetary allocation will greatly hamper the process of better connectivity, result in delay in completion of the railway projects and lead to discontent among the people. Mr Patnaik said the Railways had recently reduced an additional amount of Rs 34 crore from the budgetary allocation of East Coast Railway including Rs two crore each from original budgetary grant from three major ongoing new broad gauge rail link projects namely Khurdaroad-Bolangir, Lanjigarh road-Junagarh and Talcher-Bimalgarha. The Chief Minister said in June 2012 an amount of Rs 180 crore was reduced from the original budgetary allocation of Rs 723 crore projected in the original budget announced in March last against the projected total demand of Rs 2345 crore made by the state for different projects in Odisha for 2012-13. He said while Odisha was contributing a revenue of more than Rs 7500 crore annually to the Indian Railways it was a matter of regret that Rs 220 crore had been reduced out of the paltry budgetary allocation of Rs 723 crore.