Orissa doubts fair deal in Rail Budget

The Pioneer, July 3, 2009
PNS | Bhubaneswar

Repeatedly getting raw deal at the hands of Mamata Banerjee, political leaders in Orissa, cutting across party lines, are apprehensive of getting justice again ahead of her Railway Budget to be placed in Parliament on Friday.

BJD strongman and Rajya Sabha member Pyari Mohan Mohapatra has warned the Centre to be prepared for an aggressive agitation if the State was neglected this time by the Railways. Banerjee was Railways Minister in 2000-01 and 2001-02 when Orissa got a raw deal during both the fiscals whereas West Bengal was flooded with funds and new trains, lamented he. Orissa received Rs 239.19 crore in 2000-01, which was scaled down to Rs 178.66 in 2001-02, he pointed out.

It was Nitish Kumar who was somewhat soft towards Orissa, with the State receiving a comparatively better deal. While Orissa expected a lot during the Interim Railway Budget of 2009-10, Lalu Prasad played havoc with the State by providing only one new train, even as the State Government had demanded 14 new trains, said BJP leader and former Minister for Transport Jay Narayan Mishra.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik recently sent a letter to the Railways Minister, seeking a budgetary allocation of Rs 1,520 crore for the State. He has also demanded completion of the existing projects in a time-bound manner with infusion of sufficient funds. Demanding that Orissa should get a just deal, he pointed out that the State was generating a revenue of around Rs 5,000 crore for the Indian Railways every year. He has further informed Banerjee about the need to improve the rail network in the KBK region.

Establishment of a rail coach factory in a backward area of the State and sanction of pending projects like Bhadrachalam-Malkangiri-Jeypore, Junagarh-Lanjigarh Road and Talcher-Bimlagarh links have also been demanded, said senior BJD MLA and former Speaker of the State Assembly Maheswar Mohanty. He said the State has also requested for expediting the Khurda Road-Bolangir railway line and doubling of the Daitari-Banspani, Talcher-Sambalpur and Haridaspur-Paradeep links.

The Chief Minister, in his letter, has also stressed on the need for increasing the frequency of Bhubaneswar-Kurla Lokmanya Express, Puri-Guwahati, Puri-Patna and Puri-Ahmedabad Express trains.

However, Congress leader and former Malkangiri MLA Nimai Chandra Sarkar is hopeful of a better deal for Orissa. He has presented a memorandum to Mamata Banerjee for Bhadrachalam-Malkangiri-Jeypore railway connectivity and starting new trains in 2009-10.