BHUBANESWAR: With Odisha getting `5,252 crore in the Railway Budget for 2018-19, the BJP on Tuesday said this is the highest ever allocation made to State by the Centre. Hailing the Railway Budget as historic, Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the total allocation for projects falling fully or partly in the State is 527 per cent more than the average budget allocation during the UPA regime from 2009 to 2014 and 37 per cent more than the average allocation during 2014-18.
“Though the total allocation to railways has been been marginally increased by just `88 crore (from `55,000 crore in 2017-18 to `55,088 in 2018-19), the Centre has generously contributed for the development of the State. This shows how much emphasis the Centre gives to Odisha for improving its railways infrastructure,” Pradhan said.During the UPA-II, the total allocation to Odisha under Railway Budget was `4,190 crore from 2009-10 to 2013-14. However, after NDA Government came to power in 2014, the budgetary support for railway infrastructure development has seen a quantum jump with a cumulative allocation of `20,213 crore, he added.
Claiming that the average budget allocation for infrastructure projects and safety works has been enhanced to `3,844 crore per year from 2014-15 onwards as against `838 crore per year from 2009-10 to 2013-14, the Union Minister said the average budget allocation during 2014-18 is 359 per cent more compared to average allocation made during UPA-II.
The Union Minister said 36 projects costing `43,751 crore for construction of 4,750 km rail line (falling fully or partly in Odisha) are already under different stages of execution.On the future investment, Pradhan said an investment of about `30,000 crore for creation of new infrastructure, capacity enhancement, improvement of passenger amenities, electrification, road over bridge and safety measure has been planned by the Railways for the State for the next 5 years. With the State Government blaming the Railways for slow progress of various projects and low expenditure of allocated funds, Pradhan attributed the delay to State’s failure to provide land and necessary clearance for project implementation.