BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday requested the Ministry of Railways to sanction the missing link of railway line projects Bangiriposhi-Gorumahisani and Buramara-Chakulia to resolve connectivity problems in the area. While the first project is in Mayurbhanj district, part of the second project will be in Jharkhand.
Raising the issue in a letter to Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, the CM offered land free of cost for Odisha portion of the projects. The projects highlighted by Naveen are missing links of the existing rail network in Mayurbhanj district and are also potential alternate routes.
Stating that Railways have not invested much to expand the pre-Independence rail network existing in the then princely state of Mayurbhanj, the CM said after 70 years of Independence, only the gauge conversion work on the existing single line of 90 km between Rupsa to Bangiriposhi has been commissioned.
Naveen said the existing Rupsa-Bangiriposhi line on one end connects to Howrah-Chennai trunk route at Rupsa but ends as a dead end at Bangiriposhi on the other side. With this arrangement, trains only ply from Rupsa side and come back to the same point with no connection to Tata Nagar side which is on the Howrah-Mumbai trunk route, he said.
Railways had previously sanctioned a missing link of 50 km between Buramara (Odisha) to Chakulia (Jharkhand) to provide connectivity. But it has now been proposed to drop the work from the sanctioned list on the ground due to lack of financial viability, Naveen said and added that another survey for 42 km line between Bangiriposhi and Gorumahisani has been completed. But even for this missing link, work is not being sanctioned by Railways citing low rate of return, he said.
Stating that financial viability is not the only consideration for sanctioning new projects, the CM said Railways have always been sanctioning important projects on grounds of strategic reasons, provision of missing links and creation of alternate routes.