Summary:
Total 66-km from Khurda Road side up to Nayagarh of the crucial rail line has already been commissioned and a passenger train has started rolling.Delay of the project has often triggered political slugfest between the BJD and opposition parties. According to the MoU, the state government bears 50 per cent project cost and provide land free of cost for the 177-km long Daspalla-Balangir stretch.Reminding it to Goyal, Naveen said his government had pursued with the railways to start work from the Balangir-end for which 19 km of land was handed over in 2010.The 289-km rail project, which would connect the coastal region with the western parts of the state, was sanctioned by the Centre in 1994-95. BHUBANESWAR: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday urged the Centre to introduce a passenger train on the newly-constructed Balangir-Bhainsapalli section of the 289-km Khurda -Balangir project.The 16-km line is expected to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his proposed visit to Balangir on January 16.Naveen, in a letter to Union railways minister Piyush Goyal, said railways have not introduced any passenger services over the section, for which people are waiting since a long time.“I request you to introduce one passenger train in the section, without any further delay, so that the genuine aspirations of the people of western Odisha can be met,” Naveen noted in the letter.Naveen’s letter came a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to the state to inaugurate developmental projects worth Rs 4,500 crore.After completion of the work on the 16-km route, the mandatory inspection of commissioner of railway safety was also completed in October 2018 and trial run is being done on it.The chief minister also reiterated his demand for introduction of mail and express trains from Nayagarh town to cities like Howrah and Vishakhapatnam from Khurda end of the project.“There are trains like Garib Rath express originating from Bhubaneswar to Kolkata, which can be back extended to the Nayagarh town without any difficulty,” Naveen said.The train, if extended, will greatly help people of Nayagarh, Kandhamal, Boudh, Sonepur and Balangir to have better access to the large coastal belt of the state as well as to the economic hub of Kolkata and Vishakhapatnam.As the Khurda-Balangir project could not be completed even after two decades of its approval, the state government in July 2015 had signed a MoU with the railway ministry to develop it on cost-sharing basis..