Long standing demand of Paralakhemundi-Gunupur-Theruvalli railway track was ignored yet again in the recent Railway Budget.
The people of the undivided Koraput and Paralakhemundi have been demanding the track completion since a long time. Even the MP Koraput met with the Railway Minister to streamline the demand earlier. On railway budget proposal, Jeypore-Malkangiri (135km) was sanctioned Rs 28 crore, Jeypore-Nabarangpur(38 km) Rs 15 crore, double track for Jagdalpur-Koraput(110km) Rs 85 crore and Rs 1 lakh was sanctioned for the Koraput-Singipur tract. This is indeed discrimination for south Odisha people to restore Paralakhemundi to Rayagada on railway map, the intellectual mass opined. Former bureaucrat Purnachandra Mahapatra expressed anguish over such shortfall in budgetary allocation which is a histrical blunder by the Government of India to defame Maharaja KC Gajapati, founder of new Odisha. More so being backward region, employment could have been generated from the areas of Gajapati and Rayagada district with completion of the project, he added.
