Title - Railway minister slashes funds for Odisha Debabrata Mohapatra,

BHUBANESWAR: Two months after former railway minister Mukul Roy slashed nearly Rs 110 crore from the budgetary allocation for Odisha, his successor C P Joshi has given fresh jolt to the state by curtailing another Rs 6 crore in September.

The reduction axe fell during reassessment of the progress of the projects under East Coast Railway (ECoR) jurisdiction. While nearly Rs 6 crore was reduced from different railway projects in Odisha, a total of Rs 34.62 crore was slashed from several projects under the ECoR, which has geographical jurisdiction over three states encompassing almost all parts of Odisha along with parts of Srikakulam, Vizainagaram and Visakhapatnam districts of North-Eastern Andhra Pradesh, and Bastar and Dantewada districts in Chhattisgarh.

"The ministry has reduced Rs 2 crore each from the budgetary provisions of Khurda Road-Balangir new line, Lanjigarh-Junagarh new line and Talcher-Bimlagarh new line," a senior railway officer told TOI requesting anonymity. "This will certainly impede the construction works," he said.

While Rs 40 crore was allocated for construction of Khurda Road-Balangir newline in the 2012-13 budget, the amount has been pulled down to Rs 38 crore. Similarly, the reassessed funds for Lanjigarh-Junagarh newline now stands at Rs 10 crore as against the original Rs 12 crore and revised budget for Talcher-Bimlagarh newline came down to Rs 28 crore from Rs 30 crore.

Sources said the Railways cut down Rs 23 crore from maintenance and Rs 1 crore from passenger amenities components under the entire ECoR limit. But it is not yet confirmed exactly how much amount has been reduced from those two heads for Odisha.

Railway officials here attributed the slash to funds crunch. But they could not confirm whether funds have been flushed out from other railway zones in the country.

Earlier, chief minister Naveen Patnaik had lodged a protest with the Centre over the Rs 110-crore reduction in the budgetary allocation in the first assessment in July and demanded its restoration.

"The state government had projected a demand of Rs 2345 for different railway projects in 2012-13, but the railway budget made a very small allocation of nearly Rs 714 crore. Now suddenly again the railways have announced this reduction which will go against the interests of Odisha," Naveen had then reacted. Some BJD leaders had then raised question mark on the functioning of Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), an enterprise created to undertake railway engineering works, for its alleged poor show in Odisha.

The latest curtailment is likely to come as a shot in the arm of the ruling party to nail the Centre, which has been accused of showing step-motherly attitude to Odisha in terms of giving facelift to railway infrastructure.