Bhubaneswar: The signing of an MoU between state government and East Coast Railway (ECoR) for implementation of Railway Station Multimodal Hub project has been deferred.
The agreement was supposed to be signed by Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) vice-chairman Krishan Kumar and Khurda Road divisional railway manager (DRM), Brij Mohan Agarwal in the presence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the Secretariat here Saturday.
However, it was suddenly postponed as Agarwal expressed his unwillingness to attend the function due to illness, sources said.
The project, to be developed by BDA, will come up at the railway station and its surrounding areas.
As per the approved plan, a multi-storeyed building will come up at the entrance of the station while it will have state-of-the-art amenities, commercial complexes, multi-level parking, bus terminal, rainwater harvesting systems, firefighting facilities, etc. The hub will come up on about 1.74 lakh sqft area.
Meanwhile, ruling BJD and BJP locked horns over the issue. BJD spokesperson PK Deb smells politics behind the cancellation of the event.
As all credit for execution of the multi crore project would go in favour of the BJD government, the BJP might have done so, the ruling party feels. State BJP spokesperson Sajjan Sharma rejected the allegation and said BJP never wants to put any obstacle to developmental works.
PNN