BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha government aims to give the ambitious Ekamra Kshetra Amenities and Monuments Revival Action (EKAMRA) project a definitive shape by January 2025.
Infrastructure as well as land acquisition works, pending for nearly a year, will restart from Thursday. This was decided at a review meeting presided over by Deputy Chief Minister Pravati Parida here on Wednesday.
Law Minister Prithiviraj Harichandan, Revenue Minister Suresh Pujari, MP Aparajita Sarangi and Bhubaneswar-Ekamra MLA Babu Singh were present in the meeting.
Harichandan said although work started in July last year, there was no government focus on the project which is why it did not progress as expected. “We want to speed it up which is why we visited the project area two days back to take stock. The critical issues were discussed in today’s meeting,” he said.
All the departments involved in the project were handed out deadlines, the minister said and added progress will be reviewed by a monitoring team including the local MLA, municipal commissioner and Odisha Bridge & Construction Corporation Limited (OBCC) every week.
The previous BJD government had fixed January 1, 2025 as deadline of the project. “We will do everything it takes to give the project a concrete shape by then. Solutions have been drawn up to clear all the bottlenecks and work will begin tomorrow,” the law minister said. Harichandan added that there has been no change in the project design so far.
The project is spread over 46 acre of land and of which, about 15 acre are private-owned. Of the 15 acre, only six acre needs to be acquired. Four acre land can be acquired soon by the BMC but the remaining will need some time due to procedural complications, Sarangi said.
Launched by the former BJD government in 2019, the Ekamra project was aimed at developing 80 acre land around the Lingaraj temple. The plan covers preservation of various other ancient temples, holy tanks and water bodies associated with the 11th century shrine and creation of amenities for devotees visiting the temple.
Foundation stone for the Rs 280-crore project was laid by former chief minister Naveen Patnaik in June last year. Although work began a month later, it moved at a snail’s pace before being halted.