People's DemocracyORISSA
CPI(M) Orissa state committee has demanded for an allocation of Rs 1975 crores in the Railway budget of 2008-09 for accelerating the work of the ongoing railway projects in Orissa and completing some of those completely and others partially within a year's time. It has also demanded to fill up the vacancies to provide employment to the unemployed and in turn to promote the efficiency of the railway services. Memorandum in this respect has been submitted to the union Railway minister on February 21, 2008 by Santosh Das, on behalf of the CPI(M) Orissa state committee. The memorandum was finalised in a convention held at Bhubaneswar on February 17, 2008 with Sivaji Patnaik in chair and Janardan Pati, the secretary of the state unit of the Party delivered the introductory address. The convention note was presented by Santosh Das and after the delegates covering different districts suggested necessary amendments, it was adopted unanimously and the memorandum addressed to the Railway minister was drafted on the basis of this resolution.
At present, Orissa is having a total railway track of 2340 kms and the route length per thousand square kilometer is only 15.03 kilometers only as against the national average of 19 kilometers. Chronic negligence has been meted out to Orissa both during the pre-independence and post-independence period. However, a marginal change of approach is being noticed during the UPA rule. While the allocation for Orissa during the six years of NDA rule was Rs 1417.23 crores, an average allocation of Rs 236.205 crores per annum, the allocation during the four years of UPA regime has been Rs 1995.90 crores, an average allocation of Rs 498.975 crores per year. As due to inflation the project cost has gone up, more budgetary provisions are necessary for completion of the projects.
The memorandum has demanded to complete the residual works of the commissioned Jakhapura-Banspani railway link and make it ready for the passenger trains to ply. The number of sanctioned projects is six and an allocation of Rs 1050 crores is sought for these projects. They are - Lanjigarh Road-Junagarh, Khurdha Road – Bolangir, Haridaspur – Paradeep, Angul – Sukinda Road and Talcher – Bimalgarh. Rs 125 crores is being demanded to complete the gauge conversion work of ongoing projects. Similarly Rs 750 crores has been demanded to advance the work of the 17 ongoing doubling projects. Another Rs 50 crores has been demanded to complete the electrification work.
Demand has been made to sanction nine new projects for construction of rail lines and survey demanded for another eight lines including metro rails for Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. Immediate introduction of the two trains announced in the last railway budget (Bhubaneswar – Ranchi Garib Rath and Bhubaneswar – Rameswaram Express), and announcement for 18 new trains and increasing the frequency and extension of 25 trains are demanded. The conversion of the coach repairing unit of Mancheswar to a coach and wagon manufacturing unit and setting up a coach manufacturing unit at Bangamunda has been demanded in the memorandum.
As follow up action to the submission of memorandum to the Railway minister, the CPI(M) has given a call to observe March 19, 2008 as Railway Demands Day throughout the state of Orissa.
