President of Gandhinagar Senior Citizens’ Forum Prof KC Panda has urged the Central Government to give justice to the cities of Odisha in the matter of allocation of grant for construction of metro rail linking seven principal towns like Brahmapur, Khordha, Puri, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Sambalpur and Rourkela to provide mass transport system at a low cost.
Prof Panda has also urged upon the elected representatives, including MPs, of the State to mount pressure on the Central Government to allocate funds in phases to connect these cities in the coming 10 years’ time. He has also requested the Chief Minister to submit a comprehensive long term plan proposal to connect the cities of Odisha with metro rail system in phases and asked the MPs to fight for the cause unitedly.
According to information, ten States in India have already availed the metro rail services, namely, WB, Delhi, UP, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Telangana, while the construction of metro rail is reportedly in progress in three more States including UP, Maharashtra and Gujarat. Similarly, provision of metro rail services have already been planned for eleven States including AP, Bihar, Assam, MP, Uttarakhand and JandK while the Government has reportedly proposed, though not planned, to extend the service to some cities of four other States, including Punjab and Jharkhand, sources said.
This indicates that, 17 States in India so far either have already availed the metro rail service or are going to be covered under metro rail service in some form or the other except Bhubaneswar.
Prof Panda also urged upon the Union Government to relax the population limit criterion and also to re-consider its reported announcement made in August 2017 not to provide financial assistance to new metro rail project, unless some sort of private partnership is involved.
Since the metro rail is a Central subject, all metro projects in the country, whether within one municipal area or beyond is supposed to be taken up under the Central Metro Acts. Construction of metros in India is governed by the Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978.
However, Prof Panda said sanction of metro project in India in last decade appears to be a matter of the whims of the ruling party in the Centre. Consequently, sanction of metro rail projects to different States and UTs in India currently lack equity and rationality. Some progressive States like, Odisha, administered by regional political outfits, always get a raw deal.
According to an estimate nearly 3-4 lakh people daily travel in the route Brahmapur-Khordha-Puri-Bhubaneswar-Cuttack-Sambalpur-Rourkela. The metro rail connectivity covering this route can be undertaken in six phases: Cuttack to Bhubaneswar (1st phase), Bhubaneswar to Khurda(2nd phase), Khurda to Puri (3rd phase), Khordha to Brahmapur (4th phase), Bhubaneswar to Sambalpur (5th phase) and Sambalpur to Rourkela (6th phase) which will serve the communication needs of nearly five million people including floating visitors to these towns every day, Prof Panda suggested, adding that, the State Government from its own resources can keep a fixed percentage of the State’s budget= exclusively for metro railways of the future.