Protests over rail services in KBK

The Statesman, 5th March, 2008

BHAWANIPATNA : Alleging continuous negligence by railways to KBK districts and Kalahandi in particular, “Kalahandi Rail Yatri Sangha” demonstrated at Kesinga railway station recently. The general secretary of the Sangha, Mr Jatin Das sat on hunger strike before the station master’s office, which was later withdrawn following assurance of consideration of demands from the Sambalpur division office. Mr Das maintained that if their demands including running of Raipur- Bhubaneswar inter-city through Kesinga are not fulfilled, he will resort to indefinite hunger-strike. The Sangha had seven demands in all, the main among them being direct connectivity to state capital. The other demands are stoppage of express trains at Kesinga station, extension of frequency of Samata express to five times a week from the present three times, direct train to Hyderabad from Sambalpur via Kesinga and express train between Puri and Allahabad via Vijayanagaram – Kesinga. The Sangha alleged that the region has always been neglected by the railway authorities. They charged that despite local MP’s missive to chairman of railway board on 5 January 2008 and request of collector to railway east coast railway authorities on 2 November 2007, regarding direct train between Bhubaneswar and Kesinga, no steps were taken. The divisional commerce Manager Mr J L Jena later assured that the grievances would be forwarded to railways authorities.