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Following is from http://rc.orissa.gov.in/writereaddata/sublinkimages/167.doc.

PRESS RELEASE

January 30, 2008

Reg:   Submission of Memorandum by the House Committee of OLA to the Hon’ble Minister of Railways on 30.01.2008.

        The members of House Committee on Railways under the Chairmanship of Hon’ble Speaker, Orissa Legislative Assembly, accompanied by the Members of Parliament submitted a Memorandum to the Hon’ble Union Minister of Railways in his office chamber. In the said meeting, Chairman, Railway Board and other high officials of Ministry of Railways were present.

          Orissa is on the threshold of major industrial upsurge and first progressing towards rapid industrialization. The large number of MoUs have been signed with several companies for setting up Steel Plants. Similarly, MoUs have been signed for setting up Alumina Plants and Super Thermal Power Houses. Several ports are also coming up along the Orissa coast. It is expected that additional generation of traffic will be staggering 200 to 250 MTPA by 2016.

          In the background of such massive transportation requirement, the rail infrastructure require urgent strengthening and expansion.

           Hence, the committee has given a proposal for enhancement of allocation of funds for the six ongoing projects to the tune of Rs.655 crore, for electrification of two Sections for Rs.50 crore, for gauge conversion Rs.125 crore, for doubling Rs.500 crore, altogether totaling to Rs.1330 crore, in the ensuing Railway budget.

–        2 –

          Hon’ble Railway Minister gave a patient hearing to the various demands raised by the House Committee and assured to look into the various proposals positively. He further assured that additional funds will be given for the projects in the execution stage for their early completion.

          On Puri-Konark project, Hon’ble Minister suggested that if land can be provided by the State Government, the project can immediately be taken up by the Government of India keeping in view the huge tourist potential of the area.

          The Committee also requested Hon’ble Minister to sanction nine new railway lines for which survey has already been completed. Hon’ble Minister assured that sanction of viable projects will be processed for approval of Planning Commission. The Committee also put forth demand for introduction of new train services, extension of selected existing services, increasing frequency of popular trains, improving quality of onboard services and amenities at the major Railway stations in the state.

          The Hon’ble Minister, Railways directed the Railway officials to examine the proposals given by the House Committee on Railways of OLA.

Various news reports mention some additional details. For example, New Indian Express reports that the committee asked for the following:

Lanjigarh Road-Junagarh- Rs 120 crore, Khurda Road- Balangir-Rs 150 crore, Haridaspur-Paradip-Rs 175 crore, Angul-Dubri- Sukinda Road-Rs 75 crore,Talcher-Bimalagarh-Rs 75 crore, Daitari-Banspani-Rs 60 crore.

Electrification of Kharagpur-Nimpura- Bhubaneswar and Bhubaneswar-Kottavalasa lines-Rs 50 crore, gauge conversion of Rupsa- Bangiriposi and Naupada- Gunupur lines-Rs 50 crore and Rs 75 crore respectively and doubling of Titlagarh- Lanjigarh Road-Rs 500 crore.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Hindu.

… gauge conversion of the 90-km-long Nuapada-Gunupur railway is to be finished," said A K Goyal, general manager, East Coast Railway here on Wednesday.

The gauge conversion work was going on very rapidly and it would be completed by the end of March, he said. In 2007-08, the Railway Ministry has provided Rs 25 crore for this project. The ministry has targetted to extend the line up to rayagada in the next phase.

The 118-year-old railway line was established by the then Maharaja of Paralakhemundi, Krushna Chandra Gajapati in 1889 for his personal use. The narrow gauge railway line was handed over to the Railway Ministry in 1949. Since then the people of southern Orissa have been demanding its upgradation.

Apart from the Nuapada-Gunupur line, the ministry has also targeted to complete the doubling of the railway lines in 15.3 km length Khurdha-Delang, a part of the Khurdha-Puri line, 12 km Cuttack-Barang and Titilagarh-Kesinga, a part of the 47-km long Lanjigarh-Titilagarh railway line by the end of march next, goyal said.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer on this.

The Puri railway station would be expanded and the platforms would be laid afresh to facilitate easy access to passengers to board the train. This apart the Puri Railway Station washing lines would also be developed and the station would be given a new look with an estimated cost of over Rs 100 15 crore and the station would be designed in the lines of the Jagannath Temple, he said.

The incomplete Puri-Khurdha road double tracking would be completed soon, he said. The Ministry was ready to allocate 50 per cent of the total cost of the new tracks to Konark if the State agrees to bear the rest, the Minister informed.

Following is an excerpt from a report in the Telegraph.

Howrah is one of the 22 stations that the railway ministry wants to upgrade to global standards. Six stations — including Howrah, New Delhi, Patna and Bhubaneswar — will be taken up in the first phase.

The following is from the PIB http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=33421. (Based on this Orissa will fall behind quite a bit: Only 2000kms of new lines
 none of the major new lines in Orissa, such as Khurda-Balangir, will get completed during the 11th plan. The states where the freight corridor will run and the states with a lot of narrow gauge lines will surge forward.)

In order to carry additional freight and passenger traffic in future, Railways have on hand 272 track capacity works, which on completion would add 20,852 kilometers to the Broad Gauge system.  The estimated throwforward cost of these works is approximately Rs. 55,000 crore.

A substantial amount of traffic moves on the High density routes viz. the ones which connect the four metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkatta, and the Delhi – Gaulhati route.  Railways have already announced construction of two Dedicated Freight Corridors between JNPT-Tughlakabad (1483 kms) and Sonenagar-Ludhiana, (to be later extended to the deep sea port of Kolkatta) (1279 kms) at a cost of more than Rs. 28,000 crores to give relief to two of the densely saturated routes viz. Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata routes.  In addition, feasibility studies have been ordered on four other corridors – (i) North – South (Delhi-Chennai); (ii) East – West (Mumbair – Kolkotta); (iii) South – East (Vijayawada – Kharagpur ) and (iv) South – South (Chennai – Goa).

In addition, Railway proposes to augment its track capacity in XI Plan by 15,500 kilometers, including 2000 kilometer of new lines, 3500 kilometers of doubling and 10,000 kilometers of gauge conversion.

The revenue earning freight traffic in the XI Five Year Plan period is expected to increase from 728 million tonnes in 2006-07 to 1100 million tonnes in 2011-12.  The corresponding freight output is expected to increase from 475 billion ton kilometers in 2006-07 (prov.) to 707 billion ton kilometers in 2011-12.  In order to cater to the projected freight traffic, it is expected that 62000 wagons would be required during the XI Plan.  Railways will also require to induct 1800 electric and 1800 diesel locomotives for carrying the projected traffic in the XI plan.  In addition to enhance the capacity of the existing diesel and electric locomotive manufacturing units, Railways are also going in for setting up a diesel locomotive factory at Marhowra and electric loco factory at Madhepura which will produce 150 and 120 locos per year respectively.

Since capacity augmentation takes time, Railways have taken immediate steps to enhance the throughput by increasing the carrying capacity of wagons by 6 tonnes on most of the routes and by 8 tonnes on selected routes and also strengthen the track, bridges and allied structures.  In addition, 28 heavy mineral routes with over 6900 route kilometers have been further identified for implementation of 25 tonne Axle load.  Also on selected routes, double stack containers trains have been permitted to further enhance the throughput per train.

Railways also plan to induct wagons of better design, higher capacity, longer life and low on maintenance.

The passenger traffic in the XI Five Year Plan is expected to increase from 6242 million passengers in 2006-07 (RE) to 8400 million in 2011-12.  The correspondence passenger output is expected to increase from 700 billion passenger kilometers to 880 billion passenger kilometers.

In order to cater to this increase in traffic, it is expected that 22500 coaches would be required  during the XI Five Year Plan,  implying a yearly requirement of 4500 coaches.  In order to meet this requirement , the production capacities of the existing units –integral Coach Factory, Prembur  and Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthanla – are being enhanced to 1500 and 1400 coaches per annum respectively from the  present capacity of 1000 coaches per annum each.  Further, a new coach factory is also being planned to be set up at Rai Bareily to bridge the shortfall in requirement and production capacities.

Railways have constructed a total of 4084 kilometers of track in the last three years.  The details are as under :–

This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri R.Velu in written reply to a question in the Lok  Sabha today.

Dharitri has a nice article on the golden future of Dhamara. Following are some of the major projects involving Dhamara. My prediction is that in 10-15 years the Chandbali-Dhamara-Bhitarakanika area will be a beautiful metropolitan area  next to a national park. (See top right in this map.)

1. L & T and the Tatas are building a port in Dhamara.
2. Central government is upgrading Dhamara fishing jetty  to an international fishing harbor.
3. Bharati Shipyard and Appejay group plan to build a shipyard in Dhamara.
4. A railway line connecting Dhamara and Bhadrakh will be build.
5. Good roads will definitely connect Dhamara to nearby National Highways.
6. Dhamara will be a major stop in National Waterway 5.
7. Dhamara is next to the Bhitarakanika National Park (more)

Following are extracted from a report in the Pioneer.

• the State Commerce and Transport Department, in its sanction order-29753, dated May 30, 1970, had allotted 3, 793.21 acres in the first phase and 2285.23 acres in the second phase to the Paradip Port Project. Most of the lands were obtained from Sandhakuda, Bijayachandrapur, Balijhari and Bhitaragara villages, under Kujang Tehsil. According to the official sources, about 6,889 acres of land were supplied to the Paradip Port Trust.
• The State Government had provided 62.19 acres of land to the Paradeep Phosphate Ltd, which is a fertiliser plant that started its project in 1982. The PPL had acquired 405 acres of private lands from Bhitaragada village on its own.
• … in Paradeep-Cuttack railway line 137 acres of land were acquired from the Bhitaragada village.
• Kujang Tehsil had about 1,500 acres of Government land in the Musadiha area that was provided to the Oswal Fertiliser Plant in the year 1995-96. The plant had also purchased about 500 acres of private land from the local people.
• … in 2000 Indian Oil Corporation had purchased 3,300 acres of private land from the local people of 17 villages for its refinery project, which was to be set up on the outskirts of Paradip but the project is yet to come.
• for much-hyped Haridaspur-Paradip Railway Project, widening of the NH-5 and recent expansion of Cuttack-Paradip State Highway, thousands of acres of both Government and private lands have been acquired from Kujang Tehsil.
• Essar, the 6 million tonnes steel plant project, moves for the land acquisition in Paradip and the project needs about 1,950 acres of land. The State Government has already given 350 acres of land to the plant. It will procure the remaining required land from private land.
• Posco has shown a demand of about 4,004 acres of land in Dhinkia, Gadakujang and Nuagaon villages for its steel plant and port project. The State Government has given assurance and has provided Posco most of the encroached Government and forestlands. The rest of the required land would be purchased from private landowners.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer.

Focusing on the growing importance of Vani Vihar and Lingaraj Temple Halts as serving satellite stations to the main Bhubaneswar Station, East Coast Railway has provided improved amenities at the station for the benefit of commuters.

The halts have been improved with full length for stoppage of longest trains, improved waiting halls, granite benches, pipe water supply, decongested circulating areas and facelift to both the passenger halts. ECoR general manager SS Khurana, accompanied by other high railway officials, inspected these passenger halts on Saturday.

The largest works to be completed in the current financial year are foot over-bridge at Lingaraj halt, elevating passenger halt level from rail level to high level at Vani Vihar, extension of high-level platform at Lingaraj and providing an ATM counter at both halts.

New Indian express also reports on this with the headline: “Passenger halts to be upgraded to suburban stations.”

Following is the Pioneer report on this.

The Centre’s stepmotherly attitude towards the cause of Orissa is clearly evident in the railway sector. While the State contributes significantly to the revenue of Railways, the railway route length spread across Orissa is a mere 2,495 km with an average of 15.03 km per 1,000 square km as against the national average of 19 km and much less than the average in the contiguous States.

During 2003-2004 and 2004-05 with respect to the working expenses as a part of gross earnings, the top two profitable railway zones were the South East Central (62.8 percentage and 56.1 percentage) and the East Coast Railways (66.64 percentage and 61.75 percentage). A big part of the profit of the East Coast Railways comes from transporting minerals from various mines in the tribal areas of Orissa.

Despite this, on an average during the last 16 years beginning from 1992-93, the State has received a paltry of Rs 254 crore per annum only. As a whole during the last 16 years, the State has received only Rs 4,070 crore.

While in 1992-93 it had received Rs 68.48 crore, the State received Rs 107.61 crore in 1993-94. Similarly the State received Rs 93.62 crore in 94-95, Rs 149.24 crore in 95-96, Rs 80.29 crore in 96-97, Rs 158.73 crore in 97-98, Rs 254.74 in 98-99, Rs243.74 crore in 99-2000, Rs 239.19 crore in 2000-01, Rs 178.66 in 2001-2002, Rs 194 crore in 2002-03, Rs 306 crore in 2003-04, Rs 360.98 crore in 2004-05, Rs 374.51 crore in 2005-06, Rs 653.90 crore in 2006-07 and Rs 606.51 crore in 2007-08.

Criticising the Ministry of Railways apathetic attitude towards the State, Speaker of Orissa Legislative Assembly Maheswar Mohanty said the Centre had been consistently ignoring the demands of the State in the railway sector for the last several years. “While preparing the Railway Budget, the Centre should take the revenue contribution and economic condition of the State as a criteria rather than taking population into account,” he said.

BJP State president Suresh Pujari has also criticised the Centre’s funding pattern to the State in railway sector.

It may be noted that East Coast Railway that was made functional from April 1, 2003 with three divisions namely, Khurda Road, Sambalpur and Waltair, has a lowest operating cost in the entire country. However, expansion of jurisdiction of East Coast Railways has become a necessity in light of the recent industrial projects coming up in Orissa for ensuring better coordination and facilitation of bulk customers.

In its memorandum which will be submitted to the Prime Minister and Railway Minister, the House Committee of the Orissa Assembly has urged the Ministry of Railways to either extend the jurisdiction of Sambalpur division to include Jharsuguda-Barsuan-Kiriburu, Rourkela-Nuagaon, Jharsuguda-Himgiri or to create a new division with headquarters either at Rourkela or Jharsuguda with its jurisdiction.

Likewise, the jurisdiction of East Coast Railways may be extended to include Bansapani-Padapahar section and Bhadrak-Laxmanath Road section.

Since Independence, only three broad gauge rail links namely, Talcher- Sambalpur, (174 km), Koraput-Rayagada (164 km) and Daitari-Banspani BG rail link have been commissioned. Projects like Lanjigarh Road- Junagarh sanctioned in the year 1993-94 have not been commissioned due to inadequate allotment of funds.

A similar article appeared as an op-ed in Samaja about a month back.

The Chairperson of the Railway board, in Bhubaneswar for the Railways athletic meet, met various Orissa government officials. Following are excerpts from various newspapers report on the meeting.

Statesman:

The state government would provide land for the proposed general stores depot of the east coast railway at Mancheswar.

The proposal was taken in a meeting between the chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik and the railway board chairman Mr KC Jena here today. It is hoped that this particular endeavour would assist the small entrepreneurs to a great extent.

The state government has also promised to provide land for beautification of the entrance to the Bhubaneswar railway station.

Mr KC Jena informed the chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik that a survey is being conducted for running of passenger trains on the Daitari- Banspani route and the certificate of the commissioner for railway safety is being awaited.

Issues pertaining to the development of the railways in the state like expediting of the important railway projects of the state, increasing the allocation, setting up of special purpose vehicles for Haridaspur-Paradeep and Angul-Sukinda railway projects and passenger amenities were the topics discussed in the meeting.

The establishment of a world-class station at Baranga also formed a part of the discussion. The chief secretary Mr Ajit Tripathy of the east coast railway, the general manager Mr SS Khurana, the secretary to chief minister Mr BK Patnaik, the commerce and transport secretary Mr P Patnaik were present in the meeting.

Pioneer:

During the meeting, discussions were also held for speedy implementation of the Khurda Road-Bolangir new broad gauge rail link and Lanjigarha Road-Junagarh rail link project.

The Government also urged the Railway Board chairman to expedite the Bargarha-Nawapara Road -via- Padmapur railway link, Jeypore-Malkangiri railway connection, extensions of Nuapada- Gunupur broad gauge rail link to Theruvali and formation of a special vehicle for the Angul-Dubri-Sukinda Road broad gauge rail link project.

The State Government also took up the issue to introduce more pantry cars on passenger trains. The Government also urged the Railway Board chairman to introduce more AC coaches in the Tapswini and Puri-Raipur Express.

Prior to the meeting, Sambada had published the following as the agenda of what Orissa government will discuss with Mr. Jena.

As per newkerala.com:

The 2843/2844 Puri-Ahmedabad-Puri Express (via Khurda Rd-Vijainagaram- Rayagada) will now run four days in a week from October five next. According to East Coast Railways (ECoR), the train would leave from Puri every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from October 5.

Following are excerpts from an article in Pioneer written by Susim C Sahani.

Susim C Sahani | Sundargarh

Despite decade-old debates and agitations, the most sought-after Bimlagarh-Talcher rail link is still a distant dream for this tribal-dominated district. However, if the railway project sees the light of the day, it can help reduce the distance between Bhubaneswar and Rourkela from 180 km to 150 km besides providing the most viable transport links to the potential mines zone in the district to the port in Paradip.

The rail-link project has been eluding the locals here since 1955. With the inception of Rourkela Steel Plant, a 75-km-long rail route was set up linking Rourkela to Barsuan for the iron ore mines in Bonaigarh sub-division. The tribals, inhabiting the villages all along this rail route, have been deprived of passenger train facilities although the iron-loaded goods trains have stoppages at stations like Roxy and Bimlagarh. In what seems to be an imitation of a common sight in Bihar and Jharkhand, the tribals here too board the iron-ore loaded wagons of the freight trains. If the goods train tragedy a year-and-half ago that killed over 20 persons on this route, including an eight-year-old tribal boy, is any indication, then tribals travelling this way is likely to cause more fatal accidents in the coming days.

Sources said the Hindustan Steel Limited (HSL), now rechristened as Steel Authority of India (SAIL), in collaboration with Germany, had conducted an aerial survey for the Rourkela Steel Plant and the German experts then had strongly recommended the Bimlagarh-Talcher rail-link project, linking Rourkela with Paradip Port via Talcher. The rail-route was also expected to make mineral transportation more economical by direct rail links to the key mining zones of the State with Paradip Port and to the mines of Ranchi and Bokaro.

Unfortunately, due to the feeble leadership in Orissa, former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru could not be convinced about the utility of such a promising project. …

Following is a big excerpt from Pioneer on this. (The detailed route and the various proposed stations can be found in this map.)

The inordinate delay in the construction of the Khurda – Balangir railway line has triggered severe public resentment, with people blaming the Centre for, deliberately, deferring the project.

Paucity of funds and delay in land acquisition are said to be the main factors that mar the speedy implementation of the project.

The 339 km long Khurda – Balangir railway line was sanctioned in 1994-95 and had raised the hopes of the people living in this perennially backward and neglected district. The line, which was supposed to run through Nayagarh, Phulbani, Boudh and Sonepur was expected to provide an impetus to the growth of the district.

The estimated cost of the project was Rs 354 crore initially but now the cost has escalated to Rs700 crore. As many as 17 railway stations, 441 bridges, 11 tunnels and 126 level-crossings were to be constructed as part of the project.

The Railway Ministry made a budgetary allocation of Rs15.38 crore in 2004-05 for the project and has this year earmarked Rs 10 crore, following which work on a 22-km stretch from Khurda was undertaken.

But no public representative of the area is happy with the pace of the project. Phulbani MP Sugriba Singh had also raised the issue in the Parliament sometime ago. Singh had also written a letter to Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, alleging that even one-tenth of the project’s total budget had not been released so far.

Following is an excerpt from a New Indian Express report. (The provisional route of this line can be seen in this map.)

The rail link option was mooted during the setting up of Rourkela Steel Plant (then Hindustan Steel Company Ltd). The German experts linked to the steel plant had foreseen the Bimlagarh-Talcher rail link as a corridor between the key rail routes of Howrah and Mumbai besides Howrah and Madras.

The proposed route is likely to reduce distance between Rourkela and Bhubaneswar by almost 180 km. However, alleged lack of political willingness among the leaders of Orissa is to be blamed for the failure, locals said.

The proposed route is also poised to make mineral transportation more economical by establishing direct rail connection to mines of Ranchi, Bokaro and Bhilai besides key mining zones of Orissa with the Paradip port.

After several mass agitations, the project finally got the approval of the Railway Ministry and a provision to release only Rs 10 to Rs 15 crore annually was made. Going by this count, the project estimated to cost around Rs 750 crore, could take five more decades to complete.

The work is to be carried out by the construction wing of East Coast Railway.

Following is the letter I sent to the PM with copy to Orissa CM, MPs, planning commission and chairman of the railway board. Please consider sending a similar letter to them. If possible please fax the letter to the PMO rather than emailing him.

PM’s fax numbers are 23016857 , 23015603 (Delhi STD code is 11)
Lalu’s fax number is 23387333

To: Dr. Manmohan Singh

Prime Minister

India

Cc: Mr. Arjun Singh, Minister of HRD, Government of India

Cc: Mr. Lalu Yadav, Minister of Railways, Government of India

Cc: Mr. Chandrasekhar Sahu, Union Minister of State, Government of India

Cc: Mr. Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister, Orissa

Cc: Members of Parliament from Orissa

Cc: Media

Subject: KBK and other adivasi areas of Orissa and India can not be left behind while rest of India marches forward with high speed rail; metro rail and freight corridors

Dear Dr. Singh:

First we would like to convey our heartfelt thanks for your recent higher education initiatives that you outlined in the last Independence Day speech; in particular, the announcement regarding 8 new IITs, 7 new IIMs, and 30 new central Universities with 16 of them going to states that do not have any central university. We sincerely hope that in picking the locations for these institutions you will keep in mind that for 60 years no IIT, IIM or central university have been established in Orissa. As a rapidly industrializing state, our highest priority is a new IIT. Following that, since there already exists 23 central universities, and you plan to have 30 more, and Orissa has none yet, our next priority is to have two new central universities in Orissa. We also request that the central university that is proposed to be in the KBK region should have multiple campuses so that it can cover the vast and tribal areas of KBK and because of the very high tribal and backward population in that area this university should be treated at par with the central universities in the north east. Again, we thank you from our heart for your initiatives and thank the HRD minister Mr. Arjun Singh for his role in this.

The above initiatives have restored in us some of the faith that we had earlier lost in your government. Now we would like to point out another burning issue with respect to Orissa that needs to be urgently addressed.

That issue is Rail connectivity to the hinterlands of Orissa, such as the KBK and other tribal districts of Orissa. As you are very well aware these areas are the most backward and poor areas of India; they have a very high tribal population; and are also infested with extremists. One of the important steps in uplifting these areas is making them well connected to the rest of India. That is where Rail Connectivity comes to picture.

As one of the earlier planning commissions has noted

in http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/stateplan/sdr_orissa/sdr_orich2.doc

“Railways have always played an important role in economic development and rapid social transformation in all parts of the globe. It is one of the key economic infrastructures. However, it is most unfortunate that in a poor and backward state like Orissa, development of rail networks has received much less attention of the Central Government in the post-independence period. There are as many as seven districts like Boudh, Kandhamal, Deogarh, Nayagarh, Kendrapara, Malkangiri and Nabarangpur out of the 30 districts of the state, which do not have any railway line passing through them. In the year 1998-99, the density of railway route length per 1000 sq. km of area in Orissa was only 15.03 km as against 42.66 km in West Bengal and 19.11 km. at all-India level”.

The Railway ministry has grand plans for the 11^th plan period that includes two freight corridors, high speed rail, and metro rail in several areas and it has a budget of Rs 251,000 crores. While none of these high flying plans (2 freight corridors, high speed rail segments and metro rails) are in Orissa, we are not in a position to rue over that; rather we request that while the rest of India marches forward with 2 freight corridors, high speed rail segments and metro rails during the 11^th plan, KBK and other adivasi areas of Orissa and India be not left behind. The particular lines we are referring to are:

1) Khurda – Balangir

2) Gunupur-Theruvali

3) Lanjigarh Rd – Bhawanipatna – Junagarh – Nabarangpur- Jeypore – Malkangiri – Bhadrachalam Rd (Andhra Pradesh)

4) Talcher – Bimlagarh

5) Bangiriposi -Gurumahishasini and/or Buramara-Chakulia.

6) Badampahar-Keonjhar

Often the Railway ministry and Railway board has labeled some of the pending lines in these areas as unprofitable and has given them such a low priority that at the current rate of funding (annual allocation less than the inflation) these lines may never be completed.

While the railways calculation may show these lines as unprofitable; they are not unprofitable if one considers how much Indian Railways earns from these areas. For example, the ECOR GM Shri Surendra Singh Khurana in his Independence Day address (available at http://eastcoastrailway.gov.in/custom/press_release/index.php) while talking about ECOR, said: “With only 4% of the track of Indian Railways, we cater for about 12% of total loading of Indian railway and about 7% of total earning of IR.” In regards to profitability, for the 2003-2004 and 2004-05 the working expense as part of gross earnings of the ECOR zone is the second best at 66.64% and 61.75% respectively. The profit making zones in those years were South east central (62.8% and 56.1%), ECOR (66.64% and 61.75%), North central (76.33% and 66.71%), Central (80.29% and 82.48%), South eastern (81.24% and 83.51%), South Central (85.72% and 83.62%), West Central (80.99% and 84.08%), South Western (91.35% and 86.15%), Western (93.21% and 90.85%), Northern (91.08% and 92.89%) and East Central (93.65% and 98.9%). The loss making zones were: metro Kolkata (247% and 264.38%), North Eastern (151.93% and 160.88%), Northeast Frontier (147.98% and 159.45%), Eastern (161.3% and 152.84%), Southern (118.55% and 120.79%) and North Western ( 106.26% and 104.98%).

So, if the Indian Railway is making 7% of its earning from ECOR and a much higher percent of its profit from ECOR is not it unfair to give only 4% of its track to ECOR? This means profit and revenue from ECOR is being ploughed into rest of India. Nothing wrong with that per se, except that the part of ECOR that is neglected is the most backward part of India, and has a high tribal percentage. Some of these tribals, without proper connectivity, risk their lives and travel on the roof of freight trains. Does India and Indian Railways want to take money and investment away from the tribal and backward areas to enrich its metro residents?

Dr. Singh: Is that the India of your dreams? Is that the equality and inclusiveness that you talk about in your speeches?

We don’t think so!

Perhaps this has not come to your notice. Perhaps your current planning commission has not brought this to your notice. It is our sincere request that you look at this issue and include in the 11^th plan the completion of the earlier mentioned lines and the establishment of a few rail factories in the backward and tribal areas of India, possible 1-2 in the KBK districts.

(Additional data points are in the attached document.)

Sincerely,

Chitta Baral