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It has been widely reported that the total money sanctioned for railway projects in Orissa in the 2008-09 Railway budget is 972.34 crores. This amount comes from adding up the items in the pink and the orange book.

Many people wrongly interpret that "total money sanctioned for railway projects in Orissa in the 2008-09 Railway budget is 972.34 crores" means that the amount is of new money. That is NOT true. This amount may include money that was sanctioned in earlier budgets but has not yet been spent.

See the two attached sheets: one from the pink book of  2007-08 and another from the pink boom of 2008-09

Lets take the last item in both: Rajathagarh-Barang doubling

In 2007-08:
Anticipated cost                       – 240 crores
Outlay expect to end of 06-07 – 102.7 crores
Outlay proposed for 07-08      – 86 crores
Balance to complete work       – 51.3 crores

In 2008-09:
Anticipated cost                       – 240 crores
Outlay expect to end of 07-08 – 96.7 crores
Outlay proposed for 07-08      – 125 crores
Balance to complete work       – 18.33 crores

Most papers have reported that the budget as 125 crores for the doubling of Rajathagarh-Barang.

Yes, but not all of that is new money.

This year’s budget only adds 33 crores of new money to this item. (The rest is from previous years’ budget).

See http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/feb/27video.htm.

Besides the new trains, extensions and increase in frequency, Orissa comes up in the Railway budget in the following places: (Note: The 2007-2008 budget with its pink book is also available.)

• On new lines the allocations to Orissa (all in ECOR) are (Total 164.43 crores) – from the Pink Book
  • Koraput-Rayagada – 5 crores
  • Talcher – Sambalpur – 2 crores
  • Lanjigarh Rd – Junagarh – 35 crores (57 crore more needed to finish)
  • Khurda Rd – Balangir – 32.43 crores (580 crores more to finish)
  • Haridaspur-Paradip – 80 crores via RVN (401 crores more to finish)
  • Talcher – Bimlagarh – 10 crores (847 crores more to finish)
• New Lines (Total 80 crores) – from the orange book
  • Daitari-Bansapani – 20 crores (69.2 crores more to finish) – ECOR
  • Angul – Sukinda Rd – 60 crores (251.12 crores more to finish) – ECOR
• On gauge conversion (Total 50.41) – from the Pink Book
  • Naupada- Gunupur – 10.41 crores (14.7 crores more to finish) – ECOR
  • Rupsa – Bangiriposi – 40 crores (11.1 crores more to finish) – SER
• Doubling (Total 288.25 crores) – from the Pink Book
  • Talcher-Cuttack-Paradeep (2nd bridge on Birupa and Mahanadi) – 3.25 crores (1.75 crores more to finish) – ECOR
  • Cuttack-Barang (12km) – 35 crores (51 crores more needed to finish) – ECOR
  • Khurda Barang 3rd line (35 km) – 125 crores (14.43 crores more  to finish) – ECOR
  • Rajathagarh-Barang (20 km) –  125 crores (18.33 crores more to finish) – ECOR
• Doubling (total  350 crores ) – from the orange book
  • Titlagarh-Lanjigarh Rd – 7 crores (29 lakhs more to finish) – ECOR
  • Khurda Rd – Puri Phase 1 – 2 crores (2.79 crores more to finish)-ECOR
  • Sambalpur – Rengali – 2 crores (8.76 crores more needed)-ECOR
  • Jharsugurha – Rengali – 45 crores (26.41 crores more needed)-ECOR
  • Sambalpur – Titlagarh – 65 crores (399.25 crores needed)-ECOR
  • Raipur – Titlagarh – 65 crores (548.35 crores needed)-ECOR
  • Padapahar-Bansapani – 70 crores (26.58 crores needed) – SER
  • Barbil – Barjamada – 40 crores (5 crores needed) – SER
  • Bimlagarh – Dumitra – 50 crores (23.52 crores needed) – SER
  • Bansapani – Jaruli – 4 crores (72.22 crores needed) – SER

(Below, a slightly edited version of  a posting in IRFCA gives the difference between the Pink book, the Orange book and the green book used in earlier years.)

• Green book lists the works sanctioned under SRSF(special railway safety fund). All these works are to be completed by 31.3.2008 .Therefore this year a green book was not published. Green book was prepared as a 5 yr plan in 2003 to renew overaged assets chargeable to the SRSF of Rs 17000 cr.
• Orange book contains those works which are justified for enhancing the carrying capacity of Route (i.e., throughput enhancement work in railway terminology). It contains those gauge conversion, doubling & traffic facility works which are sanctioned for the enhancement of throughput. Railway gives higher priority to complete them.
• Pink book is the main book of budget & contains all sanctioned (new as well as work in progress) works except those which are in the green or orange book.

There are two science museums in Orissa:

• Regional Science Center in Bhubaneswar.
• Dhenkanal Science Center
  

They are both part of the BITM (Kolkata) family.

Update: See http://www.orissalinks.com/orissagrowth/?p=1231 for a few more trains announced later.

This is from http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=35592.

New Trains:

• Bhubaneswar-Sambalpur-Mumbai (twice a week)
• Varanasi-Rameshwaram express (weekly)
• Puri -Darbhanga express (weekly)
• Paradeep – Bhubaneswar Express (daily – in lieu of one of the passenger trains between Paradeep and Cuttack)
• Keonjhargarh – Puri express (daily)
• Gaya-Chennai express (weekly)
• New Dibrugarh Town-Yesvantpur Express (Weekly) via Moranhat

Extension:

• 8611/8612 Varanasi-Ranchi to Sambalpur via Rourkela (Bi weekly)

Frequency increase:

• 2891/2892 Baripada-Bhubaneswar Express from tri-weekly to six days a week
• 2421/2422 Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express from bi-weekly to tri-weekly

Update: It could n’t come up on the 26th (item 17) as the Lok Sabha was adjourned after the Railway budget. It was scheduled to come up on the 27th (page 4), but  the Lok Sabha was again adjourned following protests by NDA and others raising the issue of the farmer’s plight.  Its scheduled to come up again on the 28th. But again the house was adjourned till the next day just about when this item was supposed to come.

The following is from http://164.100.24.207/lobtext/14/XIII/RLOB26.2.2008.pdf. (Our earlier coverage of this was in http://www.orissalinks.com/orissagrowth/?p=445)

Following is extracted from a report in sify.com.

Maytas Infra Ltd (MIL) is an infrastructure development, construction and project management company with more than two decades of experience in execution of complex & challenging landmark projects across the country. The company recently forayed into segments such as airports, seaports, oil and gas pipelines. MIL plans to diversify into new verticals like mining and related activities, manufacture of construction material and providing advisory & consultancy services.

… MIL’s new projects include railway siding project for Vedanta Industries in Orissa, Chennai MT Project & Hyderabad MRTS project.

… Its current projects include Vedanta Aluminium’s, Residential Township in Orissa worth Rs. 232.7 crore …

… MIL in JV with other firms is currently working on setting up 464MW Gas based Gautami Power project in AP, 100MW Sorang Hydro Power Project in Himachal Pradesh, 300MW KVK Nilachal thermal power project in Orissa and 56MW coal washery reject based SV Power project.

 

Some land acquisition numbers:

• Total: 61,769.527 acres
• Coastal: 15,536.153 acres
  • Ganjam: 3229.815 acres (top)
  • Baleswar: 347.643 acres (bottom)
• Naupada: 11,816.27 acres since 2000 (top)
• Kalahandi: 6,163.77 acres (2nd)
• Mayurbhanj: 6113.78 acres (3rd)
• Malkangiri: 3.65 acres (bottom)
• IDCO indsutrial land acquistion in last 3 years for 58 industries
  • 4778 acres govt. land
  • 6532 acres private land

Following is an excerpt from a report in Business Standard.

The NSC has transformed itself from the usual non-profit-earning PSU into a vibrant entity.

Private sector seed companies have, till now, had a virtual monopoly over the production and sale of seeds, mostly hybrid seeds, of high-value crops. This was chiefly because the public sector seed producers, besides being fewer in number, remained focused right from the beginning on the production of seeds of low-value but high-volume crops (basically cereals), where profits were low though the quantities to be handled were large. Besides, public sector units (PSUs) made little attempt to keep pace with time.

However, the much-needed change in the public seed sector is coming about now with the largest player, the National Seeds Corporation (NSC), adopting a corporate culture and deploying state-of-the-art technology to produce seeds even of high-value crops and hybrids.

Indeed, as could be expected, this change in the work culture has transformed the NSC from the usual non-profit-earning PSU into a vibrant entity striving to find a place among the mini-Ratnas, if not the Navratnas. The headquarters of the NSC and four of its regional units in Bhopal, Jaipur, Secunderabad and Bangalore, have already acquired the ISO 9001-2000 certificate and the remaining regional units are in the process of doing so.

… Indeed, the man behind this incredible transformation is the present chairman and managing director B B Pattanaik." I would be able to declare a much higher dividend for the current year, "asserts an enthusiastic Pattanaik. He has not only motivated the aging employees of this 45-year-old corporation for better performance but has also taken several new initiatives to be in a position to rub shoulders with the well-run private sector seed companies, many of which now have business tie-ups with the NSC.

… The NSC’s tissue culture unit with a capacity to churn out annually about two lakh test tube-raised plantlets for propagation of the banana is coming up in Bhubaneswar and may become operational by the next month. For research and development back-up, the NSC gets support from the vast agricultural research network of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the state agriculture universities. This helps the NSC to add, on an average, around 20 new varieties and hybrids to its product range every year.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Economic Times.

IT consulting firm MindTree Consulting Ltd would the start construction of its proposed development centre here from April, official sources said.

MindTree Consulting is one of the four major firms which had proposed investment in Orissa’s IT sector, the others being Genpact Limited, ICICI Eastern Regional Hub and Wipro Limited.

According to Orissa’s Information Technology Minister S N Patro, MindTree Consulting Limited had proposed to invest nearly Rs 200 crore in its project here.

"While Wipro will invest Rs 100 crore in its project, ICICI Eastern Regional Hub proposes to spend Rs 500 crore here," the Minister said, adding that Genpact had proposed to invest Rs 200 crore.

Following is from http://www.byofilmfestival.com/index.htm:

Bring Your Own Film Festival (BYOFF) is an annual event held during February every year on Puri beach. To call it just a film festival is to limit its unique magical quality. It’s a festival without hierarchy, competition, juries and awards where not only filmmakers but also artists from other fields like music, theatre, painting, sculpture, dance, literature and photography are encouraged to participate and show their work.

In short, BYOFF can be best described as an informal and intimate gathering of artists with films in the backdrop where screenings go on early into the morning hours- first, inside makeshift tents and then in the open air after sun down.

For filmmakers, it has been an alternative platform ever since its first edition in the year 2004. The idea is to have a festival away from the oppressive atmosphere of bureaucratic control of big cities and where just about anybody – with or without films – could participate. The participants of BYOFF themselves are the volunteers and the organizers of its future editions. And the mood of the festival is that of a no holds barred carnival where the sea and its sand provide the right ambience to lift the spirits of every one present. Yeah, for five days and five nights.