ROURKELA: The Sundargarh administration is seeking to revive the shelved wholesale market yard (WMY) project with majority funding from the district mineral foundation (DMF). The original project was estimated at Rs 98.45 crore with the Centre agreeing to bear 75 per cent of the cost and the state government and Panposh regulated market committee (RMC) chipping in 20 per cent and five per cent respectively. For the project, 12.34 acre land was earmarked at Balughat along NH-143. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had laid its foundation stone in February 2014.
Sources said spade work for the project started a couple of years later and by end of 2017, RMC spent around Rs 73 lakh for construction of the boundary wall to secure the site. However, after completion of around 70 per cent of the boundary wall, work was stopped following an order from the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes in February 2018.
RMC sources said Rs 15 crore was received under Rashtriya Krishi Vikash Yojana. But with the project failing to take off, the fund returned unutilised and the Centre reportedly dropped the project plan. Subsequently on the direction of Odisha government, the district administration started exploring ways to complete the project on convergence mode.
Accordingly, the Rourkela Smart City Ltd (RSCL) prepared a new detailed project report (DPR) of the WMY in 2021. The cost estimate was reduced to around Rs 60.88 crore in which the RMC was to invest Rs 5 crore and the rest amount sourced from the DMF.
Around 45 days back, the Panposh sub-collector’s office at Rourkela submitted a feasibility report to the Sundargarh collector and DMF chief. A technical team from the DMF also inspected the site and analysed the revised DPR.
The project was conceptualised to decongest the city with shifting of wholesale business activities from the congested Daily Market, Plant Site and Rourkela Main Road localities. Panposh sub-collector and RMC chairman Bijay Nayak said being new on the job, he was unaware of the project details. RMC secretary A Singh said the feasibility report was recently sent to the district collector for necessary action.