BHUBANESWAR: Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi on Wednesday cancelled his scheduled meeting with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and rushed to Tamil Nadu where at least nine persons died and 100 were injured in an accident near Arakkonam, about 75 km from Chennai. The Minister’s visit to Orissa will be rescheduled in the near future. However, a date is yet to be finalised. This would have been the first visit of Trivedi to Orissa after he took charge as the Railway Minister in place of Mamata Banerjee. Several key issues, including the declining export of iron ore from the State which has affected the freight loading of the railways, were scheduled for discussion. Slow progress of railway projects was also be to be discussed. Many of the projects with high rate of return (RoR) have not progressed because of delay in the land acquisition and forest clearances. The State Government and the railways want early completion of the 82-km Haridaspur-Paradip railway project. The land acquisition for the project, being implemented under the public private partnership (PPP) mode by the Rail Vikash Nigam Limited, which started in 1997 is progressing slowly. Several other projects delayed beyond schedule include the ` 810.78 crore Talcher-Bimlagarh 154-km railway link.
Comments
0 comment