ROURKELA: The demand for creation of a new railway division at Rourkela under Bhubaneswar-headquartered East Coast Railway (ECoR) with restructuring of Chakradharpur Division of South Eastern Railway (SER) has gained momentum.
BJD’s Nabarangpur MP and Member of the Standing Committee on Railways Balabhadra Majhi has been pressing for creation of a new railway division either at Rourkela or Jharsuguda to boost operational efficiency and infrastructure growth of railway in the region.
Talking to this paper, Majhi, a former Railway Chief Engineer, said Keonjhar, Sundargarh and Jharsuguda districts come under the jurisdiction of Chakradharpur Division in Jharkhand while Balasore district comes under SER having headquarters at Kolkata. He said with the involvement of multiple States, there is a lack of coordination.
Majhi said the Railways should create a new division at Rourkela or Jharsuguda under ECoR and considering the existing tracks and several new railway lines coming up in Odisha, there is a need for new railway divisions at Jajpur-Keonjhar Road junction and Rayagada.
Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram said the Steel City is a potential contender for the railway division. With huge coal and iron mining, industrial operations are major revenue contributors for the SER in the district.
Railway Users’ Association (RUA) general secretary Amulya Baral claimed that during the setting up of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) in the late 1950s, former chief minister Biju Patnaik had made provisions for about 6,000 acres at Bondamunda in Rourkela city to set up a railway division and a wagon manufacturing factory.