State to demand Rs 2,300 cr for rail budget 2012-13

Orissa will place Rs 2,300 crore demand before the Railways ministry for the ensuing Rail Budget of 2012-13.

A committee of the state legislative assembly led by speaker Pradeep Amat will call on the Railways minister Dinesh Trivedi on Thursday.

The demands will mostly centre around greater funds for significant rail projects proposed in the state like Paradeep-Haridaspur, Lanjigarh-Junagarh and Khurda Road-Bolangir that have been hit by delay.

“We will meet the Railways minister tomorrow at 12 noon and present a memorandum containing the state's demands. All problems of the state and issues pertaining to rail projects have been highlighted in the memorandum,” said Amat.

In the last Railway Budget, the ministry had allocated Rs 1,168 crore as against the state's demand of Rs 2,085 crore.

Recently, the state government had detailed its demands in a pre-Budget note meant to be submitted to the Railways minister.

With the additional rail borne traffic in Orissa projected in excess of 350 million tonne per annum in the next five years, the state government will seek Rs 1,220 crore in the Rail Budget for 2012-13 for six broad gauge projects currently under execution.

These projects include Paradeep-Haridaspur (82 km), Khurda Road-Bolangir (289 km), Talcher-Bimlagarh (154 km), Angul-Duburi-Sukinda Road (90 km), Lanjigarh Road-Junagarh (56 km) and Jaleswar-Digha (41 km).

The state's rail traffic requirement is set to go up significantly as it has received proposals for adding over 80 mtpa of steel, eight mtpa of alumina, 15 mtpa capacity in petroleum refining, 30 mtpa in cement manufacturing and 47,000 MW of power generation.