Passions run high at House Panel Meet

BHUBANESWAR: Charges and counter charges marked the meeting of the Assembly committee on Railways here on Thursday. While members of the ruling BJD blamed the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre for the poor railway network in the State, Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh said the railway projects had been languishing due to inefficiency of the State Government. The meeting presided by Speaker Pradip Kumar Amat expressed concern over prolonged delay in execution of railway projects. Majority of the members said the paltry allocations by the Centre is the major hurdle in the way of execution. The Opposition members, however, blamed the State Government for slow progress of land acquisition. Citing the example of Khurda-Balangir rail projects, the ruling party members said the Centre sanctioned the construction of 289 km of railway line in 1994-95 with an estimated cost of ` 1,000 crore. Land acquisition for the project has been completed for only 36 km towards Khurda Road. Laying of railway lines for the 56-km stretch from Lanjigarh to Junagarh in Kalahandi district is also facing the same problem. The project sanctioned in 1993-94 with an estimated cost of ` 142.98 crore is progressing at a snail’s pace. The project required 1,022.72 acres of land out of which private land of 869.89 acres and Government land of 81.97 acres have been acquired.  The construction of the project could not be taken up due to delay in conversion of 114.23 acres of forest land for non-forest activities. The Haridaspur-Paradip railway project is hanging fire since 1996-97 due to the same problem. The ` 1,000-crore project taken up in a public-private partnership (PPP) mode is languishing due to delay in land acquisition and other problems like selection of contractors, a member of the House committee said. Angul-Duburi-Sukinda-Jajpur Road is also a victim of Central negligence. The 90 km of railway project sanctioned in 1996-97 at an estimated cost of ` 638.50 crore will provide critical link to industrial hubs of Angul, Dhenkanal and Jajpur districts. The project has been delayed considerably. Senior officials of the East Coast Railways present at the meeting requested the House committee to set up  a special land acquisition cells for different projects.  The meeting decided to prepare a memorandum on the status of railway projects in the State within a week. The House committee will submit the memorandum to the Prime Minister sometime in the second week of November.  Finance Minister Prafulla Ghadei, Minister of State for Commerce and Transport Sanjib Sahu, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Development Sarada Nayak, Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister Niranjan Pujari, leader of the BJP Legislature Party KV Singhdeo, Jayanarayan Mishra, and Amar Satpathy of NCP were present.