BHUBANESWAR: Union minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday informed that a tender of Rs 107 crore has been floated for construction of the new divisional headquarters at Rayagada.
The Rayagada division was announced in 2019 after the Centre gave a go-ahead to the bifurcation of East Coast Railway (ECoR) by splitting the Waltair division. The new divisional headquarter at Rayagada will focus on railway infrastructure projects in the districts of southern and western Odisha.
During a meeting with Union Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan and BJP MPs from Odisha at New Delhi, Vaishnaw expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for sanctioning Rs 73,723 crore for development of railway projects in Odisha. “There will be three railway divisions as usual within the ECoR zone and Odisha’s economic interests will be protected,” he said.
The minister said 59 stations in Odisha are being redeveloped under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme and the cabinet chaired by the PM has approved eight new railway projects at a cost of Rs 19,289 crore so far during the present tenure of the NDA government.
The eight new projects include Gunupur-Therubali, Junagarh Road-Nabarangpur, Malkangiri-Pandurangapuram via Bhadrachalam, Badampahar-Kendujhargarh, Bangiriposhi-Gorumahisani, Buramara-Chakulia and Bargarh Road-Nuapada Road new lines besides the Sardega-Bhalumuda new dual carriageway railway line.
Pradhan said, Odisha has benefited the most during last 10-year rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The most successful implementation of the Mission Purvodaya has been in the railway sector. ECoR will have three divisions as earlier and the railway minister has promised that the economic interests of Odisha will be protected. It would remove the fears in the minds of everyone, he said.
Among others, Cuttack MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, Berhampur MP Pradeep Panigrahy, Kalahandi MP Malvika Devi, Jajpur MP Rabindra Narayan Behera, Nabarangpur MP Balabhadra Majhi, Aska MP Anita Subhadarshini, Mayurbhanj MP Naba Charan Majhi, Jagatsinghpur MP Bibhu Prasad Tarai and Bhadrak MP Avimanyu Sethi were present.