Railway Minister comes calling September 14

BHUBANESWAR: Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi is coming on a day’s visit to the State on September 14 to discuss the ongoing projects with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Leading a high-level team, he will also raise the issue of declining export of iron ore from the State which has affected the freight loading of the railways.  The export of iron ore has drastically gone down following stringent norms introduced by the State Government following the mining scam. The ores used to be transported mainly through railways. But after the multi-crore mining scam surfaced, it has affected the revenue of railways from the State. Sources said the slow progress of railway projects is also a major point of concern. Many of the projects with high rate of returns (RoR) have not progressed because of delay in land acquisition and forest clearances. The State Government as well as the railways want early completion of the 82-km Haridaspur-Paradip railway project as it will be an alternative link to the Paradip Port with Kalinganagar industrial area and the proposed Posco steel plant. The land acquisition for the project, which started in 1997, is progressing slowly. The project is being implemented under the public private partnership (PPP) mode by the Rail Vikash Nigam Limited (RVNL). The land acquisition is also affecting several other projects. The ` 810.78-crore Talcher-Bimlagarh 154-km railway link, key to augment coal transportation from the Talcher-Angul coal mines of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL), is getting delayed due to forest clearance problem.