ROURKELA: The administration is likely to hand over land in Sundargarh and Deogarh districts to East Coast Railway (ECoR) for the new Talcher-Bimlagarh new rail line project by August this year. Sambalpur-based Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC), North Suresh Chandra Dalai reportedly gave assurance in this regard at a meeting with the authorities of ECoR on Thursday. Held at Sambalpur, the meeting was attended by ECoR chief engineer Akshay Saxena and collectors of Sundargarh and Deogarh in virtual mode. Tehsildars of the two districts were physically present.
Quoting revenue officials and ECoR sources, leader of Talcher-Bimlagarh Rail Line Action Committee Bimal Bisi said the RDC assured to hand over the required government and private land in Sundargarh and Deogarh by July and August respectively. The project has been delayed inordinately due to hurdles in land acquisition in Angul, Deogarh and Sundargarh districts.“Now that August has been fixed as the deadline, ECoR is gearing up to float tender for the remaining stretch in Sundargarh and Deogarh for expeditious project completion,” he claimed.
As per the documents available with TNIE, the track length in Sundargarh would be 35.03 km. Of the required 248 acre of private land, the ECoR till now has got Records of Rights (RoR) for 2.05 acre in one of the 29 villages. Similarly, of 144 acre of required government land in Sundargarh, the land alienation process has been partially done in all 29 villages and RoR for only 7.98 acre given in Koida tehsil.
In Deogarh district, 192 acre of private and 81 acre of government land are required for a track length of 32.10 km. However, land acquisition is yet to start. In Angul, the track length is 82.65 km. Majority of the total 531 acre of private land in 61 out of 67 villages have been handed over to ECoR.
In the remaining six villages, land acquisition is stuck due to multiple court litigations. RoR has been fully given for 16 villages and partially for 14 villages. Of 203 acre of government land in Angul, the alienation process is almost over, but RoR is yet to be given. For the 64 acre of forest land, there is no roadblock as Stage II final approval was given by the Ministry of Forest and Environment in June, 2020.
The Talcher-Bimlagarh new rail line project was sanctioned in 2003-04. Out of total length of 149.78 km, only 17.62 km from the Talcher side has been completed and works are underway for another 30.5 km till Khamar in Angul. Despite repeated attempts, Sundargarh collector Gavali Parag Harshad was not available for comments on the matter.