By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, July 2, 2016 : Odisha government has urged the railway ministry to hasten up the process for construction of a couple of new lines as soon as possible.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday dashed off a letter to union railway minister Suresh Prabhu requesting him to formalise the state government’s offers through project specific MoUs for Jeypore-Malkangiri and Jeypore-Nabarangpur Broad Gauge lines.

“I would like to invite your attention to the two newly sanctioned projects in Odisha, namely the Jeypore-Malkangiri and Jeypore-Nabarangpur Broad Gauge lines. Both these projects have been sanctioned in the Railway Budget 2016-17 and feature in the Pink Book as well. As these two projects are pivotal for the state of Odisha to bring in development to the left wing extremist affected districts of Malkangiri and Nabarangpur, my Government has already offered financial participation in both these lines,” Naveen said in the letter.

“For the Jeypore-Malkangiri project, Government of Odisha has offered to bear 25% of construction cost and for Jeypore-Nabarangpur project, we have offered 50% construction cost along with provision of land free of cost to make the internal rate of return (IRRs) attractive,” he added.

Patnaik further recalled his discussion with Prabhu on the subject and said, “You may also recall that during our discussion at Naveen Niwas, Bhubaneswar on 16 April, 2016, you had consented to take up these two important works immediately as they have been included in this year’s Pink Book. But even though four months have passed since the Railway Budget announcement, no further progress has been made because of non-formalisation of our offers through MoUs.”

“My Government and your Ministry are already executing 177 kilometres of the Khurda Road-Bolangir new line project through a project specific MoU. In this project too, Government of Odisha is bearing 50% of construction cost along with land cost,” he said urging the minister to formalise the offer of the state government through two project specific MoUs similar to that of Khurda Road-Bolangir so that the land acquisition and other time consuming activities like construction of bridges can be started this year itself.