Rourkela: The Rourkela Development Steering Committee (RDSC) Sunday demanded the enhancement of the railways link and merger of Rourkela with East Coast Railways (ECoR). Speaking to the media, president of RDSC and also former president of Rourkela Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) Subha Pattnaik asked how much the city would benefit from the enhanced contribution, Rs 10,536 crore, in the interim budget which was presented yesterday by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. “State share, ever since the BJP government has come to the Centre, is going up and today it has crossed Rs 10,000 crore. But how much Rourkela will benefit from it, one is not sure. Because we are not vocal about it,” said Pattnaik. Recounting his days as president of RCCI Pattnaik said, “At that time we participated in many railway committee meetings and put forth the demands for Rourkela and got results. We again demand many important projects for Rourkela so that it will benefit all.”
Speaking about the Rourkela-Bhubaneswar Intercity Express, Pattnaik urged that the ministry should look into the problems with this particular train. The said express is a single train, which leaves Rourkela early in the morning and reaches Bhubaneswar in the afternoon. And then it leaves the capital city after one and the scheduled time of arrival is 9:35pm, he added. “However, as this is a single train there is hardly any example of when this train has reached here in time. Every day during arrival, it would make an inordinate delay and sometimes it has reached here as late as 1 AM in the night,” said Pattnaik. On behalf of RDSC, he advocated that “Another train should also depart from Bhubaneswar, instead of the same train returning – which reaches late every day. This will help the passengers as the train would not get late as is happening now.” Pattnaik also insisted on connectivity to Balasore and Mayurbhanj from here. “Only Utkal Express is going to Balasore and Bhadrak from here. The railway authorities should explore the possibility of running a train through Bada and Sana Jamda to these places,” said Pattnaik. Pattnaik was more pragmatic when he supported the move Rourkela to be merged with the East Coast Railways. “Only Rourkela and Jharsuguda are not part of the ECoR. These two places and especially Rourkela are the highest revenue providers to South Eastern Railways. Why we are outside ECoR, what is the logic no one knows,” Pattnaik argued.
Besides, he thanked Dharmendra Pradhan, Education Minister and Juel Oram, MP Sundargarh and chairman of the defence standing committee for the extension of the Maurya Express from Rourkela to Sambalpur. “When I was the president of RCCI, I made several appeals for this and now finally it has been done. For that I am thankful to both of them,” he said.