Dear Baba ( Papa) and Swahali!
Wish You A Very Happy Birthday !!!
With best wishes From Babuni,Mona Bonny and Amit...through orissaindia e-commerce services!
KENDRAPARA/KORAPUT, 3 JAN: Land for the crucial 82 km stretch of the Paradip-Haridaspur railway line is yet to be acquired.
A decade after the foundation stone of the project was grounded, less than 40 per cent of the land acquisition work has been complete. Dogged by bureaucratic red-tapism, the acquisition exercise has virtually come to a grinding halt.
The rail line project called for acquisition of 1,648 acres of land both from the government and private landholders. Till date, 1,092 acres of land is yet to be acquired for expeditious completion of the project.
The landowners in posssession of agriculture land, mostly from Kendrapara district, are on agitation for the past one year. Their grouse is that compensation given to them is disproportionate to the sum disbursed in other cases of displacement.
The disagreement is yet to be settled though there has been a series of high level discussions involving East Coast Railways and senior officials of the administration.
Of the Rs 38 crore budgetary provision earmarked for land acquisition, Rs 25 crore has reached the displaced landholders while the rest ~ Rs 13 crore ~ is still lying unutilised.
What is more intriguing is that ECoR had to cough up an estimated Rs 23 crore as the establishment cost for disbursing nearly Rs 25 crore to land owners who had to part with the land.
As it is, the fate of the 82 km stretch Paradip-Haridaspur rail project inaugurated amid much fanfare in 1998 hangs in the balance.
The project would cover at least 39 km of Kendrapara district which is still bereft of a rail line. For the project to take off, the land will have to have be acquired from 45 villages in Kendrapara district besides another 29 in Jajpur district. Land will also be needed for the said rail project in 12 villages in neighbouring Jagatsinghpur district.
BJD stages rail roko
Ruling BJD activists led by former minister and MLA Mr Rabinarayan Nanda disrupted railway traffic along the Kirandula-Visakhapatnam line by staging a rail roko agitation at Jeypore today.
All goods and passengers trains were cancelled as the protesters picketed on tracks demanding demanding extension of passenger trains ~ such as Samaleswari Express, Hirakhand Express and Koraput to Visakhapatnam DMU upto Jeypore ~ in place of the present practice of terminating the trains at Koraput.
While talks with the officials from Visakhapatnam failed to resolve the deadlock, railway authorities decided to cancel goods and passenger trains on the route as a precautionary measure.
Source : Land for the crucial 82 km stretch of the Paradip-Haridaspur railway
This News was Added On 1/4/2010 1:06:13 AM & Updated On 1/4/2010 1:06:13 AM
