The Odisha Government has expressed displeasure over the funds allocated for various railway projects in the State in the recently-introduced Railway Budget-2021 in Parliament.
State Commerce & Transport Minister Padmanava Behera on Thursday said, “The Railway Budget-2021 is completely disappointing for us. The State had demanded Rs 7,200 crore for various railway projects, but the Centre allocated only Rs 4,500 crore for Odisha, of which only Rs 500 crore has been allocated for the Khurda-Balangir railway project.”He said there is no new rail line or project sanctioned, completely ignoring the State for its major demands such as Puri-Konark, Bargarh-Nuapada, Chakulia-Buramara, Jajpur-Aradi-Dhamra, etc.
“In this Railway Budget, the allocation of fund has been reduced. What is shown in capital budget as approximately Rs 4,500 crore includes Rs 500 crore for Khurda-Balangir and the out of budget funding of Angul Sukinda and Haridaspur Paradip SPV lines.
These SPV companies don’t get any fund from the Centre; so, the numbers shown are misleading and disappointing as against Odisha’s demand of Rs 7,200 crore. Also in the list of Government of India, many completed projects are being shown to inflate the numbers,” Behera said in his statement. Further, allocations on individual important sanctioned works are extremely disappointing for the projects such as Talcher-Bimlagarh, Jeypore-Nabarangpur and Jeypore-Malkanagiri.
For example, for Talcher-Bimlagarh, only Rs 10 crore has been allocated which would not be sufficient to construct half a km of railway track. The projects like Gunupur-Theruvalli sanctioned in the year 2018 are yet to be approved by the NITI Aayog. So, a token of only Rs 1,000 is allotted.Berhampur-Sambalpur line is planned for construction by State JV company ORIDL with self funding.