Naveen urges Centre to sanction rail links in Mayurbhanj dist

Bhubaneswar, Dec 29: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Friday urged the Railway Minister Piyush Goyal to sanction missing railway links in State.

In letter, he drew the attention of the Railway Minister to one of his letter dated January 17 this year wherein he had requested among other proposals to provide the missing links without which the full potential of existing Railway lines is not being exploited.

In his letter he said, Mayurbhanj is a very large tribal district blessed with vast forest cover and home to one of largest tiger population in the world famous “Similipal” National Park.

It, therefore, is a national treasure in terms of flora, fauna and tourist potential, he said adding, “It would be pertinent to point out that this district was a rich princely State prior to independence, and always had a large rail network.”

He rued the Railways have not invested much to expand the pre-independence rail network that was existing in the then princely State of Mayurbhanj and in the more than 70 years after Independence, Railways have only commissioned the gauge conversion work on the existing single line of 90 km between Rupsa to Bangiriposhi in the year 2006.

“I believe there was a reason why this princely State had invested heavily in the rail network and we need to go extra mile to provide better connectivity and services to the people of Mayurbhanj,” he wrote.

Patnaik said, the existing Rupsa – Bangiriposhi line on the one end connects to the Howrah-Chennai trunk route at Rupsa but ends as a dead end at Bangiriposhi on the other side.

With this arrangement, trains only ply from Rupsa side and come back to the same point with no connection to the Tatanagar side, which is on the Howrah-Mumbai trunk route, Patnaik informed Goyal.

“Railways had previously sanctioned a missing link of 50 km between Buramara (Odisha) to Chakulia (3harkhand), to provide connectivity, but unfortunately Railways have now proposed to drop the work from its sanctioned list on the ground of lack of financial viability,” he said adding, another survey for the same connectivity has been completed for a 42 km line between Bangiriposhi and Gorumahisani.

“Even for this missing link, work is not being sanctioned by Railways citing low rate of return,” he said.

Admitting that financial viability is an important consideration for sanctioning of new projects, he said it is certainly not the only criterion.

On grounds of strategic reasons; provision of missing links; creation of alternate routes and greater social equity, Railways have always been sanctioning important projects, he said.

“As the projects highlighted above are missing links of existing network and also are potential alternate routes I once again urge the Ministry of Railways to sanction the missing link project of Banginposhi, Gorumahisani in Mayurbhanj district and “Buramara-Chakulia in Odisha and Jharkhand to provide the much needed connectivity   In order to make the projects more viable,” he urged while assuring land free of cost for the Odisha portion for the above projects in the greater interest of the people of Mayurbhanj who he said have historically seen better railway connectivity.