RTI exposes political ill motivation while establishing Wagon Factory

The state Govt.'s tall claims for working towards development of KBK region and upliftment of its people is proving to be futile as per the information obtained through RTI by Sanjeeb Kumar Satapathy. In the railway budget 2010-11 railway minister in Feb 2010 has proposed one of the railway Wagon Factories in Bhubaneswar or Kalahandi. Without waiting for any correspondence from the railway ministry Mr Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister of Odisha immediately shot a letter to Minister of Railway on 18-03-2010 with D.O.No. UM-6/2010-116-CM to set up the railway factory in Chhatrapur of Ganjam district arguing it’s close to urban area and NH5 against the interest of railway board to establish in Kalahandi/Bhubaneswar. When local people and intellectual of Odisha raised that Odisha state Government should establish the proposed Wagon Factory in Kalahandi district, Smt Mamata Benerjee clearly also mentioned on Nov 16, 2010 in West Bengal saying one of the proposed Wagon factories would come in Kalahandi of Orissa. In response to that Chief Minister of Odisha shot another letter to Minister of Railway on 29-12-2010 with D.O.No. UM-6/2010-483-CM to set up the railway factory in Ganjam district explaining that this particular land is suitable and no suitable land is available in Kalahandi for Wagon factory NH5. RTI information also states that Orissa state Govt. has not submitted any site in Kalahandi for Wagon factory to the ministry of railway due to non availability of railway land at Kalahandi district. It is also stated in the same RTI reply that after joint verification conducted by East Coast railway (ECOR) and district administration of Ganjam, a suitable land was identified for setting up Wagon factory. It is surprising that ECOR and state Govt. of Odisha have categorically stated non availability of railway land in Kalahandi, whereas they did not emphasize the same railway land for Ganjam but stated about availability of Govt. land when hundreds of Govt. land is available within 2.5 km radius of railway stations/track in Kalahandi, the guidelines opted for Ganjam district by the Orissa Govt. and ECOR. If the railway land was the actual reason, then Kantabanji in Balangir should have been proposed by Orissa Govt. instead of Ganjam. Making the issue further complicated when the first proposal for Ganjam was sent to railway ministry in Mach 2010 by chief minister of Odisha, East coast railway authority had not performed any joint inspection along with Kalahandi district administration to find a suitable site for Wagon Factory in Kalahandi whereas same was done for Ganjam, despite railway budget 2010-11 clearly proposed to set up five state of the art Wagon factories in JV/PPP mode at Secunderabad, Barddhamanm Bhubaneswar/Kalahandi, Guwahati and Haldia, which was approved in the parliament budget session. Kalahandi has plenty of Govt. land available near to the railway track like the case of Ganjam. After receiving the letter dated on 29-12-2010 by Mr Naveen Patnaik, on 25.01.2011 railway minister wrote back to chief minister of Orissa with letter no. 2010/M(W)/964/53 that the proposed site in Ganjam would make the project financially unviable. If the land near Chhatrapur in Ganjam was initially identified based on input of railway authority as claimed by state Govt., then how the same site was rejected by railway ministry? On March 4, 2011 in the parliament railway minister Ms Banerjee had again categorically pointed if land is provided in the under developed Kalahandi Wagon Factory could be established there. The Chief Minister of Odisha wrote back on 25.3.2011 with D.O. No. UM-6/11-51/CM to the railway minister to establish the Wagon factory in Sitapali, another location in Ganjam district. When railway ministry has repeatedly favored to establish Wagon factory in backward Kalahandi in the parliament and RTI information obtained from railway board also clearly says railway has intention to establish a Wagon factory in Kalahandi, the state Govt.’s argument in favor of urban area, NH5 etc and reluctant to provide land in Kalahandi has worried intellectuals of the state and raised questions on whether Naveen Patnaik Govt. is really interested for the development of backward region except political hype.