ROURKELA: A day after the agitating slum residents of Gopabandhupali here disrupted train traffic for few hours, the South Eastern Railway (SER) has demanded the Sundargarh district administration to take legal action and recover compensation to the tune of `73 lakh from them.Spokesperson of SER’s Chakradharpur Division Bhaskar Kumar on Monday said the Division has sent a letter to the district administration demanding appropriate action against the agitators and prevent repetition of similar incident. Owing to the agitation, several Express trains were affected causing untold miseries to the passengers, while materials movements to various power, steel and other industries were disrupted with huge financial loss. The railway administration has also sought to recover adequate compensation from the agitators, he added.
SER sources informed that a ruling of the Supreme Court was cited to ensure recovery of compensation from the agitators. On Sunday afternoon, a group of agitators led by youth leader Prakash Paswan had detained the Ispat Express for above two and half hours. Some other Express and good trains running during that time were also affected. The slum dwellers were protesting the SER’s action which has stopped a four-lane project on a 1,200-metre stretch on its land demanding `110 crore towards land revenue and compensation.
Rourkela-Koraput Express resumes
In a huge relief for the tribal-dominated districts of Sundargarh and Koraput, SER on Sunday resumed services of the Rourkela-Koraput Inter-City Express. Following an order from the Kolkata-based zonal headquarters of the SER, the Chakradharpur divisional authorities have started operation of the train thrice in a week with immediate effect from Sunday.
This paper on January 7 had published a detailed report on adverse impact after abrupt discontinuation of the key train connecting the two tribal districts. A delegation of BJP led by Union Ministers Jual Oram and Dharmendra Pradhan on December 28 had also met Railway Minister Piyush Goyal requesting his intervention to resume the train. It was stopped from July 16, 2017 following collapse of a small bridge in flood between Titlagarh and Raygada section of East Coast Railway. Spokesperson of Chakradharpur Division of SER Bhaskar Kumar has confirmed resumption of the Express train from Sunday, adding it would operate thrice in a week. He said the train may run on a daily basis soon.
