ROURKELA: The ongoing Talcher-Bimlagarh new rail line project that has been inordinately delayed, received yet another allocation of Rs 300 crore in the 2023-24 union budget, but given the land related hurdles, progress on the ground seems unlikely anytime soon.
Despite increased fund flow over the past eight years the project continues to move at snail’s pace in absence physical handing over of government and private land largely in Deogarh and Sundargarh districts to the East Coast Railways.
The new rail line demand is almost 55 years old and it was sanctioned in 2002-04.Reliable sources said till now the project has got combined budgetary allocations of Rs 2,139 crore with the highest chunk of Rs 1,932 crore coming between 2014-15 and 2023-24 and rest Rs 207 crore allocated between 2004-05 and 2013-14.
According to the East Coast Railway (ECoR) till April 2021 Rs 874.89 crore was spent with nearly half of it handed over to the Odisha government towards land acquisition.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on December 9, 2022 replying in the Rajya Sabha had said the project of 150 km was taken up with an anticipated cost of Rs 1,928 crore and so far 20 km have been completed from Talcher to Sunakhani. Further work was underway for another 30.50 km from Sunakhani to Khamar, while work was held up for legal issues in patches.
Even due to unavailability of land work could not be started from Bimlargarh side in Sundargarh. The Minister said out of the project’s total requirement of 1,002.61 acre of private land 524.81 acre could be acquired, while of total 422.38 acre of government land 251.10 acre was alienated and entire forest land got diverted.
Two PILs were filed in the Orissa High Court in September 2020 and March 2021 by the Talcher-Bimlagarh Rail Line Action Committee (TBRLAC) and Sachetan Nagarik Manch (SNM) respectively seeking directions to the state government to expeditiously provide land to the ECoR.
TBRLAC core committee member Bimal Bisi on January 18, 2023 had sent another request letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to remove land hurdles for the project.