Letter to CM: Give free land and share cost of Junagarh-Amaguda railway line and include Umarkote-Dharamgarh route in highway project

Dear Honorable Chief Minister Mr. Patnaik,

Thank you very much for envisioning two important issues that has been a long-standing demand for infrastructure development in KBK region.

First of all, I heartily congratulate you for announcing Biju Expressway to connect Jagdalpur with Rourkela. This is one of the important routes to connect Western bordering region of Odisha. I am very glad that you have positively considered our request to link NH 200 (Bhella) with NH 201 (Ampani) through this expressway, which has been one of the longstanding demands [1,2]. This route will particularly benefit to connect Koraput, Nabarangpur and Kalahandi regions with Nuapada and Bargarh regions.

However, Umarkote, another bordering town in KBK region of Odisha, is still out of this development. I request you to consider connecting Umakote-Jharigaon-Dharamgarh through a state highway to associate this part of Nabarangpur district with Nuapada, Kalahandi, Balangir, Bargarh and Kandhamal directly.

Secondly, I am also equally impressed with your initiative to share cost for Jeypore-Malkangiri and Nabarangpur-Jeypore railway lines. Kindly recall my letter dated on Jan 26, 2014 [3] appealing to share cost of Junagarh-Malkangiri railway lines in the line of proposed Khordha-Balangir rail lines.

I like to emphasize that Jeypore-Nabarangpur line gives less that 12% rate of return (ROR), but Junagarh-Amaguda has been estimated as 14.67 % ROR.  In 1962-63 parliament was informed that Mr. Parkers had done a survey from Kesinga to Nabarangpur to join Kothavalasa-Kirandul (KK) line because Koraput-Kothavalasa and Koraput-Rayagada are e-special category railway routes having many tunnels and high-level bridges, the speed is limited to less than 50 kmph and number of wagon can’t exceed 30 during mineral transportations in these two routes. Amabguda-Lanjigarh road railway line will make mineral transportation from Kirandul to Visakhapatnam faster and easier. Realizing this Laniigarh road-Junagarh line was approved in 1991 to connect with KK line at Ambaguda via Nabarangpur. 56 km of Lanjigarh road-Junagarh line of this route took 25 years to get completed and survey for Junagarh-Ambaguda portion of this route has been done with 14.67% ROR. If the state Government of Odisha makes this a point and negotiates with the railway ministry to expedite Junagath-Amaguda railway project in a cost-sharing basis, the project will be boosted and Nabarangpur can be in railway map quickly, and Koraput and Nabarangpur can have direct rail connectivity with Western Odisha and South Odisha to further advance socio-economic development in this region.

I urge you to kindly consider building Umarkote-Dharamgarh state highway and give free land as well as share the cost of Junagarh-Amaguda railway line for the benefit of KBK region

Thank you and best regards

Digambara Patra

References

[1] Grievance to CM (March 3, 2011)

http://kalahandia.blogspot.com/2011/09/khariar-to-moter-road-needs-attention.html

[2] Letter to CM on Feb 19, 2011;

http://kalahandia.blogspot.com/2011/02/bypass-route-for-nh201-near.html

[3] Letter to CM on Jan 26, 2014;

http://kalahandia.blogspot.com/2014/01/sharing-cost-of-khordha-balangir.html