Cuttack people unhappy with trains bypassing Cuttack: An easy solution
Bhubaneswar and vicinity, Bhubaneswar- Cuttack- Puri, Cuttack, ECOR, Khordha, Railway maps March 15th. 2010, 1:22amRecently unhappiness is brewing because of various trains bypassing Cuttack. See the following news item from Samaja.
I believe there is a easy solution to this: Develop the Naraj station to have express train stops and develop the accessibility of the Naraj station from the roads that goes from Naraj to Bidanasi side of Cuttack.
I wrote about it earlier in http://www.orissalinks.com/orissagrowth/archives/1967. Following are some excerpts from that article.
Naraj Station lies across Kathjodi river about 1 km away from the bridge. It is about 2 kms from the proposed 2nd campus of Ravenshaw university, 3-4 km from Bidanasi-CDA and within 1 km from the proposed Sri Sri University.
Several trains in the BBS (Bhubaneswar)-SBP (Sambalpur) line such as 2893 (BBS-BLGR superfast), 8304 (Puri-SBP Intercity), 8405 (Puri-ADI), 8507 (VSK-ASR) skip Cuttack and go via Naraj without stopping there. By developing the Naraj station a bit more, developing the road between the station and the bridge, and introducing stops at Naraj station people in Cuttack will be able to easily access these trains.
… Naraj is really very close to Cuttack; much close to Cuttack than Barang or the proposed station between Barang and Patia. Also, Naraj station is much closer to the newer parts of Cuttack (such as CDA and Bidanasi) than the Cuttack station. Also, a lot of development is planned near Naraj that includes the Sri Sri University, National Law University and 2nd campus of Ravenshaw University. …
There were some concerns regarding the overlap with the proposed New Barang station between Patia and Bhubaneswar. I think with the rate Cuttack-Bhubaneswar area is growing even if a major station in the form of a New Barang station comes up, it will be still a good idea to have a express stop station in Naraj.
In the not too far future the greater Bhubaneswar area would need five stations: Khurda Rd, Bhubaneswar, New Barang, Cuttack and Naraj. The following map shows the five stations and the distance between them.
March 15th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
With due respect for those from Cuttack, I think it is unreasonable to expect all trains to pass through Cuttack. The solution lies in connecting Khurdha-BBSR-Cuttack through local trains that will run perhaps four times a day. I believe in this budget session the railway minister (however much I admire her feisty spirit I think she has a bigoted attitude towards Odiyas, as a lot of Bengalis!) made a provision for a local train from Khurda-BBSR, this could be extended to Cuttack.
On a different note, I think long distance trains should start adding some of the stations such as Barang/Patia/Mancheswar/Vani Vihar to their list of stops. The city has outgrown the main station. In fact it’s more a question of when rather than if.