Union Petroleum and Skill Development Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Union Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain dedicated to public various passenger amenities works at the Bhubaneswar and Sakhigopal railway stations at a function held here on Saturday.

The Bhubaneswar railway station’s 2nd entry and station building and New Ticket Booking Office at Platform-6 side were inaugurated at the railway station here. Similarly, a New Booking Office with reserved and unreserved ticketing system at Sakhigopal railway station were dedicated to the public through videoconferencing.

Pradhan praised the Railways for infrastructural development of the ECoR region and urged to speed-up the projects by continuous review of Railway Board. He said that the Railways and State Government have to work together and solve the problem of land acquisition issues which is the biggest bottleneck for railway projects. The allocation of funds for Railway projects is very high and these funds should be fully utilised for the infrastructural projects.  He appreciated the ECoR efforts in planning of 6-metre-wide foot over bridges at Bhubaneswar and Bhadrakh and advised to complete the works in 2018.

Gohain praising ECoR efforts said funds for the projects in this region would not be a constraint and the Ministry would provide full support for infrastructural development. He urged the State Government to cooperate with Railways by providing land so that ongoing projects would be completed at the earliest.

An official release said the new station building here has been completed at a cost of Rs. 1.97 crore having facilities like booking counter-cum-lobby, waiting halls, food plaza, TCI office, toilets for Divyang passengers, Pay and Use toilets and circulating area with barricade.

Similarly, the new station building at Sakhigopal station has been completed at a cost of Rs 1.55 crores having most of the above facilities.

Earlier, ECoR General Manager Umesh Singh welcomed the guests and informed about the performance of the ECoR.