CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has directed the Railway Board to dispose of within three months, the Bharatiya Bikash Parishad’s representation demanding creation of a new railway division at Berhampur.
The Parishad had submitted the representation to the Railway Board on October 2, 2018. The representation also included demand for extension of route of important express trains up to Berhampur from Bhubaneswar. The Berhampur-based organisation’s president Surendra Panigrahi had filed two separate PIL petitions for as many demands on July 1 and 24 while the representation was pending with the Railway Board.
Both the petitions came up for hearing on Wednesday. But the court disposed of the two petitions without adjudicating on the issue. However, the division bench of Chief Justice KS Jhaveri in its order on both the petitions, directed the Railway Board to dispose of Bharatiya Bikash Parishad’s representation of October 2, 2018 within three months.
In one of the petitions, Panigrahi had sought the court’s direction for setting up the new division at Berhampur instead of Rayagada on the ground that 162 passenger trains (Up and Down) pass through Berhampur railway station daily while only 10 passenger trains run through Rayagada station. On July 17 this year, the Railway Ministry had issued an order creating a new railway division at Rayagada.
In the other PIL petition, Panigrahi had sought the court’s direction for extension of both Up and Down Odisha Rajdhani Express and Odisha Sampark Kranti Express trains up to Berhampur from Bhubaneswar and Lokmanya Tilak Express up to Berhampur from Visakhapatnam. The petition had also sought the court’s direction for stoppage of Howrah to Pondicherry train at Berhampur and running of a new train from Berhampur to Surat every Monday and Wednesday in a week as demands for it had not been considered by the Railways.
The petitioner further sought the court’s direction to the Railways to introduce passenger trains DMU or MEMU from Berhampur to Puri in the morning and Puri to Berhampur.