Demand for division at Rourkela receives fresh impetus

ROURKELA: With Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik insisting on unification of railways in Odisha by  creating new railway divisions in Rourkela and Jajpur under East Coast Railway (ECoR), the demand for a division at Rourkela has received a fresh impetus. 

For long, all political parties and a host of voluntary outfits have been demanding that a new railway division be carved out for Rourkela with bifurcation of Chakradharpur division of South Eastern Railway (SER) zone. 

The SER zonal headquarters is in Kolkata and the divisional headquarters is at Chakradhapur in Jharkhand, located on the busy Howrah-Mumbai line of the Golden Quadrilateral of Indian Railways. Other divisions of SER are Adra and Kharagpur in West Bengal and Ranchi in Jharkhand.

As per SER’s official website, Chakradhapur division is the ‘heart’ of SER covering the main corridor of freight and passenger traffic between the country’s eastern and western parts. It is spread over East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum, Saraikela-Kharsawan and Simdega districts in Jharkhand and Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj districts of Odisha. Of its total route length of 741.705 km, around 405.907 km is in Odisha. The division handles the bulk of iron and manganese ores, dolomite, limestone and other raw materials for all major steel plants of the country.

Rourkela Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) president Subrata Patnaik said the demand for a new railway division in Rourkela is legitimate and added that it would give the required impetus to growth of railway infrastructure in the otherwise neglected Odisha districts and also remove jurisdiction issues.