ROURKELA: Fund flow to the ongoing 154-km Bimlagarh-Talcher rail line which passes through Sundargarh, Deogarh and Angul districts has increased manifolds under NDA-II regime, but there has been little visible progress on the ground. The East Coast Railway (ECoR) has again extended the completion date for the rail line work from Talcher side till March 2018. Amid inordinate delay, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is monitoring the project and has set target to complete by end of 2022. Initial project completion target was 2019.
As per the Pink Book of the Indian Railways in the 2018-19 Budget, a whopping `300 crore had come at one-go including `150 crore capital fund, `50 crore special fund and `100 crore under Extra Budget Resource head. Significantly, the Modi Government through its July 2014 Interim Budget and four full Budgets till now has sanctioned `982.50 crore. It is almost half of the anticipated project cost of `1,928.07 crore and Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram played an instrumental role for it.
But, Jual has not been able to expedite the project at the desired level in the past 45 months. Interestingly, the project was sanctioned in 2003-04 by the AB Vajpayee Government in which Jual had held the same ministry. During the UPA-I and II, the project was nearly consigned to neglect with allocations of hardly `100 crore in 10 years. Sources said despite increased availability of funds in past 45 months, the project continues to move at a snail’s pace and above `150 crore unutilised fund reportedly returned last year. Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal during a meeting with Jual in December last year had blamed the BJD-led Odisha Government for the slow progress due to its failure in land acquisition. But the BJD leadership in Sundargarh district blames the Railway for not sincerely pursing the land acquisition procedures.
ECoR sources informed that completion time for the train line from Talcher to Sunakhani has been revised to March 2018, adding 42 of 45 minor bridges and four of the five road over bridges and road under bridges falling on the stretch have been completed. Structures of the two major bridges have also been completed, they added.Jual said land acquisition is the main hurdle and reiterated on simultaneous acquisitions of land in three districts to arrest further delay.