The South Eastern Railway, which has bagged four new projects, did not get allocation for a single new line in West Bengal, in the annual budget by the railway ministry.
The SER has received allocation for fresh projects, namely Kiriburu-Barbil (24.5 KM) New Line at an estimated cost of Rs.705.17 crore, Bhojudih-Talgoria (12.5 KM) Doubling at an estimated cost of Rs.129 crore, MuriBarkakana (58 KM) Doubling at an estimated cost of Rs.580 crore and Rourkela-Bondamunda, ‘A Cabin Fifth Line’ (10 KM) at an estimated cost of Rs.169.65 crores.
However, all the new projects are in the neighbouring state of Odisha. South Eastern Railway, in West Bengal, has not been allocated funds for any new projects in the forthcoming financial year of 2020 to 2021. According to sources in the railways, the SER, instead, has received increased funds in some of the ongoing projects in Bengal.
The doubling project between Purulia-Kotshila has received an outlay of Rs 10 crore against last year’s Rs 4.80 crore. The third line projects of KharagpurNarayangarh, KharagpurAdityapur and NarayngarhBhadrak have also received a boost in the proposed annual budget.
Of the gross amount of Rs 5401 crore including Extra Budgetary Resources (EBR), SER has received Rs.997.79 crore for the ongoing projects in the state while Odisha has got Rs.1583.82 crore for new projects. The SER, overall, has received additional funds of Rs 431 crore, as compared to last year’s allocation of Rs 4970 crore.
Meanwhile, Eastern Railway, according to sources, has got a proposal of Rs. 70 crore for construction of new lines. Some of the new projects falling under West Bengal and to be executed by Eastern Railway, are Tarkeshwar-Magra (51.95 km) including material modification for Tarkeshwar-Furfura Sharif (21.75 km) for a new line, Lakshmikantapur-NamkhanaChandanagar with new material modification for Kakadwip-Budakhali (5 km), Chandanagar-Bakhali (17.2 km), and Rampurhat-Mandarhill via Dumka (130 km) with new material modification for Rampurhat-Murarai (29.48 km) for a third line.