BHUBANESWAR: The proposed re-development of
Bhubaneswar railway station is caught in a tug-of-war between the Centre and state over the venue for signing of the MoU. Initially, both parties agreed to sign the MoU on January 20, 2018. It was cancelled over some
administrative inconvenience, official sources said.
On April 27, railways minister
Piyush Goyal wrote to chief minister
Naveen Patnaik for signing of the MoU at
Rail Bhawan, New Delhi, on May 23. But Naveen on May 21 urged Goyal to come to Bhubaneswar for it.
Goyal again on May 23 wrote to Naveen asking him to attend the MoU signing at New Delhi on a mutually convenient date at the earliest. The MoU dates have been postponed twice over this tussle thus delaying station work.
In 2016, the state government engaged the works department to construct the new station building replacing the existing passenger reservation system (PRS) office. The East Coast Railway (ECoR) shifted the PRS office to a temporary shed near the GRP police station in November that year. But the work got delayed further due to design change for Smart City projects.
On Saturday, finance minister
Shashi Bhusan Behera said they want to sign the MoU in Bhubaneswar because the project is for people of Odisha. “The railways should give us a date for the MoU signing ceremony,” he said. Senior railway officers declined to comment.
Bhubaneswar is the highest revenue earning station in Odisha. It earned Rs 355.4 crore from ticketing and received a record footfall of over 1.68 crore passengers in 2017-18. The state government has agreed to construct a new station building entirely at its own cost on their land and has made budgetary provision of Rs 60 crore for this.
The existing building of the station will be dismantled and two railway lines and a platform will be constructed by the railways at a cost of about Rs 70 crore increasing the number of platforms to eight. Construction of the third foot overbridge, which is six metres wide, will be completed soon, official sources said. The state government has engaged Surbana Jurong, a Singapore-based firm, to ready the design Smart City projects, including the new railway station building.
