Bhubaneswar: The Railway Board has expressed grave concern over cost and time overruns due to delay in land acquisition for the construction of 289-km Khurda-Bolangir railway line.
Even Railway’s progress on various portions of the project is badly hampered due to uncertainty in land acquisition and the failure of the Orissa government to acquire land, East Coast Railway (ECoR) sources here said.
ECoR has kept infrastructure ready for the line, including manpower
and materials, but could not go ahead with the work as the state government failed to provide land including a few stretches of forest land.
The line is ready and functional from Khurda Road up to Nayagarh Town (66 km) and ready up to km 75 km.
In Nayagarh district (from 93 km to 143 km), preliminary notification for land acquisition was made by state government in August-last only. Final land estimate has not yet been sanctioned.
In Boudh district (from 143 km to 239 km), of 102 villages preliminary notification by state government was issued for only 33 villages in September last.
Similarly, in Sonepur district (from 239 km to 266 km), of total 30 villages where land has to be acquired, preliminary notice has been issued by the state government for only 13 villages in October last.
ECoR sources said no land has been acquired for the construction of railway line from 93 km to 266 km. Preliminary notifications in a few cases have been issued very recently.
The total requirement of forest land in Nayagarh district is 147 acre. The forest land required in Boudh and Sonepur districts is 1400 acre. All this forest land still remains under various stages of processing.
Railways will be able to ready the entire line within less than three years, if the land is properly made available to Railways.
Recently, an aerial survey of the land stretch from Bolangir side up to Bhainsapalli and from Nayagarh side up to Nuagaon has been conducted.
Bhainsapalli station from Bolangir side is targeted to be made operational by March 2018, while station at Mahipur will be ready by about the same time.
But the progress is hindered because of land acquisition problems.
Railway Board has expressed grave concern over cost and time overruns due to delay in land acquisition.
UNI
