Final survey underway for Jaleswar-Digha rail link

The final survey for the Jaleswar-Digha rail link is being carried out by the South-Eastern Railway. The Centre has allocated Rs 20 crore for this project in the current financial year.This was stated by minister for commerce & transport Sanjeev Sahoo in the state assembly.

He said, the Centre has allocated Rs 60 crore for the Lanjigarh Road-Junagarh Road rail link and Rs 75 crore for the Daitari-Banspani track in 2010-11.

However, the Centre has not allocated any amount against Rs 100 crore sought by the Orissa government for six new rail links- Vizianagaram-Rayagada-Damanjodi, Angul-Sambalpur-Jharsuguda, Tomka-Banspani, Rayagada-Titlagarh-Sambalpur, Titlagarh-Raipur and Haridaspur-Paradeep.

Besides, the Centre has allocated only Rs 386.73 crore as against Rs 760 crore sought by the state government in this fiscal for 19 rail doubling projects. These include Titlagarh-Lanjigarh Raod, Rajatgarh-Barang, Khurda Road-Puri, Cuttack-Barang, Sambalpur-Rengali, Jharsuguda-Rengali, Raipur-Titlagarh and Sambalpur-Titlagarh to name a few.Moreover, only Rs six crore has been allocated by the Centre compared to Rs 100 crore sought by the state government for two gauge conversion and extension projects- Rupsa-Bangriposi-Chakulia and Nuapada-Gunpur-Theruvali.

In addition to this, the state government had also sought an allocation of Rs 55 crore – Rs 25 crore for five coaching terminals and Rs 30 crore for seven Adarsh stations and two multi-functional complexes but the Centre has not made any allocation for these projects in 2010-11.

The expenditure in 2009-10 in the implementation of some of the major railway projects had fallen short of the actual allocation.

As against the allocation of Rs 75 crore for the Angul-Duburi-Sukinda Road line, only Rs 18.58 crore could be utilised whereas Rs 18.58 crore was spent on the Haridaspur-Paradeep track compared to the actual allocation of Rs 75 crore.Similarly for the Khurda-Road Bolangir line, the expenditure in 2009-10 was Rs 19.36 crore as against the allocation of Rs 28.07 crore.