
ROURKELA: The Rourkela Steel Plant’s plan to augment its transport infrastructure has hit a roadblock with land acquisition and encroachment emerging as major hurdles.
Sources said to avoid the congested Bondamunda rail route for direct transportation of raw materials, the RSP wants to revive its defunct rail track between the steel plant and Dumerta. It also plans to lay new double rail tracks from RSP to Dumerta for direct connectivity to the Basuan line.
RSP sources said after being left unused for last several decades, the old four-km-long RSP to Dumerta rail track was gradually uprooted at many places by unscrupulous elements. Besides, encroachment cropped up with construction of unauthorised residential structures. To reclaim the land and revive the defunct line, a team of RSP visited the site last month only to be driven away by the encroachers.
Similarly, for the second rail line with double tracks between RSP and Dumerta via Barkani, the RSP deposited Rs 132 crore with the South Eastern Railway (SER) as the project cost with land value, six months back. With the double tracks, the RSP would be able to bypass the congested Bondamunda route and through Dumerta, raw materials could be freely transported from Barsuan, Kalta and Taldihi iron ore mines of RSP in Koida Mining Circle without detention.
It is learnt that for the new double tracks, the SER needs to acquire about 2.5 acre of private land at Dumerta and Barkani. A meeting of the gram sabha for approval of the project has been fixed on January 18 at Bondamunda panchayat office. Since there is opposition to any RSP project, the new double track proposal too is likely to face protest.
As of now, the RSP has an operational double-track connected to the highly-congested Bondamunda railway yard on the busy Howrah-Mumbai main line of SER. Under the current practice, finished steel-laden goods trains or empty wagons from RSP have to reach and halt at Bondamunda yard before being allowed on the main line. Similarly, incoming mineral carrying goods trains to RSP have to reach Bondamunda yard and halt before entering RSP.
Meanwhile, the proposal of RSP to expand its steel making capacity from the current 4.5 MTPA to 9.3 MTPA at an estimated cost of about Rs 36,000 crore continues to hang fire due to land encroachment. In January 2023, the SAIL board of directors had approved expansion proposals of three SAIL plants, but RSP’s proposal did not get clearance due to encroachment of the proposed site.