Rourkela: Union Ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and Dharmendra Pradhan flagged off Monday the extension of the Banaras-Sambalpur-Banaras Bi-Weekly Express up to Visakhapatnam at the railway station here. The train was flagged off from here towards Visakhapatnam and will run as a ‘special’ train. The regular service in the extended portion of this train will commence November 22 from Visakhapatnam and from Banaras on the next day.
Speaking on this occasion, Vaishnaw said the Sambalpur Junction railway station will be developed as a world-class station at a cost of Rs 300 crore and the design will be prepared by the students of IIM Sambalpur and Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT), Burla. The Railway Minister said allocation to Odisha increased substantially during the Modi government in comparison to the then UPA-II period. The annual allocation in the railway budget for Odisha has been increased from Rs 800 crore to Rs 10,000 crore.
Similarly, Vaishnaw pointed out that the pace of work has also increased in Odisha. “The Railways constructed 450km of new tracks last year while earlier during the UPA time, only 50km of tracks were constructed in a year,” Vaishnaw pointed out. Pradhan said the Centre has allocated Rs 18 lakh crore grant to Odisha during the last nine years while the UPA government had allocated only Rs 3 lakh crore in its 10-year tenure. Similarly, mining revenue of the state has been increased to Rs 50,000 crore in a year during the tenure of the current NDA government. He said the revenue earned during UPA’s regime was only Rs 5,000 crore. Pradhan also requested Vaishnaw to run a special train from Sambalpur to Ayodhya as the Ram Temple will open from January 22 next year. He said it will help devotees travel to Ayodhya.
